


Intolerable Me, Despicable You

by blythechild



Category: Criminal Minds
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Antagonism, Arguing, Canon-Typical Violence, Conflict, Denial of Feelings, Developing Relationship, Divorce, Drinking & Talking, Drinking to Cope, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Fake Character Death, Grief/Mourning, Hurt/Comfort, Loneliness, Mistakes, Partners to Lovers, Partnership, Porn with Feelings, Resentment, Second Chances, Separations, Sexual Content, Trust Issues, Unresolved Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-29
Updated: 2014-07-29
Packaged: 2018-02-10 23:32:10
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 34
Words: 40,228
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2044365
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blythechild/pseuds/blythechild
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Aaron Hotchner doesn't like Emily Prentiss much, and she only cements his opinion by defying him at nearly every opportunity. She's annoying, aggressive, sarcastic, and much to his dismay, she becomes the most dependable member of his team. As time passes, she proves indispensable to Hotch, but how far will he go to help her when her past catches up with her?</p><p> </p><p>This is a work of fanfiction and as such I do not claim ownership over the characters herein. It was created as a personal entertainment. This story contains adult themes, violence, explicit sexual content, and excessive drinking - it should not be read by those under the age of 18.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This a canon-divergent story. Elements from seasons 2-6 have been used, but not religiously ;)

They breach the suspect’s house as one and then split off with a silent nod to clear the upper and lower floors. It isn’t ideal, he thinks as he sweeps the front room; guidelines state that they should always clear hostile areas in pairs. But Prentiss is more than tactically proficient - he doesn’t need to hold her hand. It isn’t like breaching a building with Reid, for example.

He isn’t much for partnering anyway, despite his strict adherence to procedure. It is fine for the others and he encourages it in every team situation in which he finds himself, but some people work better alone and he has always secretly believed that he is one of those people. You can always depend on yourself, but you might never really know another person, let alone _trust_ them. And he doesn’t like Prentiss. He has his reasons. 

She’d redeemed herself a little when she stood up against Strauss and dared the Unit Chief to fire her when she refused to surf the tsunami of Bureau politics, but that doesn’t mitigate the fact that she used those same politics to shoehorn her way into the BAU in the first place. She is ambitious and overeager, and also strangely insubordinate when the mood strikes her… no, she is going to be a problem for him to manage, as if he doesn’t have enough of those already. And she is Liz Prentiss’s daughter, he thinks with sinking dread. God help them all if something ever happens to her…

_Get your head back in the game, Hotchner. You can micromanage later._

He clears two more rooms and hears Prentiss moving through the floor above him as the old floorboards groan under her feet. There isn’t much stealth in their position anymore and if the suspect had been there to begin with, he’s probably gone now that the house has announced their arrival. He ducks back into the hallway and heads for the last room at the back of the house. They’ll have to start fresh… re-jig their expectations… where would this UnSub go to ground? How will it affect his miss-

He turns the corner and comes face to face with the business end of a Desert Eagle Mark XIX. He forgets to breathe - he has no idea how that process works. He forgets how his mouth and eyes and hands operate. The dark aperture at the center of the mussel seems massive.

“Look what we have here? It’s the Eff-Bee-Eye…” The UnSub draws out the words like he’s reciting a rhyme from a game. It pisses Hotch off and brings him back to himself.

“Drop your weapon. You don’t want to die today and neither do I.” Balls first. Even if this was the end, act like nothing can touch you.

“You don’t know me as well as you think you do.”

The Desert Eagle makes a clicking sound and he breathes out one last time. He wonders if his eyes will be quick enough to see the bullet leave the chamber, and then his mind goes quiet. Just images.

The shot is unbelievably loud. His body slams back against the doorframe and a spike of pain circles the base of his skull in a flash, and then is gone. He blinks. His head has knocked into the framing behind him and there’s a pulsing ache at the back of his head where he realizes a bruise is going to form. The UnSub is on the floor; the guy’s blood is sprayed across Hotch’s tie.

Prentiss stands in the doorway at the other end of the room, kitty-corner to where he and the UnSub are. She is still in a firing stance, her face blank as if she has forgotten to wear an expression. She waits a second and then releases the breath she held when she fired - just like the Bureau teaches them. Animation drains from her and she holsters her gun. She looks at him quickly, unflinching and firm, and then nods before walking out of the room.

Hotch stares at the dead man at his feet, watching the blood pool slowly creep towards his shoes. She’d shot him from behind, from a bad angle. It would have been a difficult shot, with a possibility of hitting Hotch instead. But she took it without hesitation. He didn’t even have time to see his life flash before him.

And now he’s pissed off because he has let himself down but _she_ hasn’t.


	2. Chapter 2

The team packs up at the PD and one by one they melt away in the direction of the airport. No one mentions his near miss - they all know better. Haley will take care of that when he gets home. There’ll be a reprise of their favorite argument: “How can you do this to Jack?” She’ll accuse him of placing his family a distant second after a bunch of soulless degenerates, storm off, and he’ll spend the night on the sofa, walking into work the next day with some impressive back pain. Just like clockwork. For once he wishes he could skip it.

But before he gets to that, he owes something to Prentiss.

He watches her from the door of the PD conference room, arms crossed and scowling. She looks up and gives him the slightest nod of recognition.

“Almost done. Has everyone else gone already?”

“Yes.”

She goes back to her packing and he steps into the room fetching a low sigh. He’s looking forward to this as much as to Haley’s tongue-lashing when he gets home. He doesn’t bother to wonder why.

“Prentiss.”

“Yeah?”

“Thanks.”

She freezes in place. There is a moment of absolute silence between them that is the most disturbing he has ever felt with a subordinate. Then she zips her bag shut, straightens and fixes him with a look more frightening than the mussel of a Desert Eagle.

“Are you fucking kidding me?” She murmurs.

“What? No.” She catches him off guard. “I’m just trying to thank you for saving my life today. And watch your tone.”

“You can suck my tone, Hotch. No one’s here to witness it anyway.” She hoists her bag and walks towards him. “I know you don’t like me. I know that you resent my placement on your team and that you believe that I pulled some political strings to get here. Given that you’ve seen my resume and know exactly what qualifications I have, I’m going to assume that your resentment is a result of latent misogyny and a fundamental challenge to your Alpha Male status in this group.”

He stands straight and lets his arms drop to his sides as if preparing for a fight, but she sees it coming and waves it off. “That’s a debate for another time. What really gets me is that you’ve gone out of your way to thank me _for doing my job_. As if you honestly expected for me to do otherwise because I would let some petty personal shit get in the way of it. If you want to thank me, Hotch, then trust me the way that you trust the rest of the team. I’ve got your back whether you like it or not. I’m not playing around here.”

She gives him a hard stare for a moment and then brushes past him out into the PD squad room. He watches her go and stretches out his hands as if trying to drain the tension in his body out through them. Then, he follows her. 

He stands beside her outside on the curb, vibrating with useless aggression, as they wait for the local field office’s liaison to show up and drive them to the airport.

“Understood.” He says finally, fussing with his go bag while they wait. That was twice today that he had let himself down. He doesn’t like the trend.

Prentiss rolls her shoulders beside him and stares into the street. When the SUV pulls up, she opens the rear door for him and then quickly claims the passenger seat in front for herself. She doesn’t ask and he doesn’t comment. When they are on their way, he sees her eyes flick to him in the rear view mirror.

“Can you handle any more advice from me today?”

“I think I can manage, yes.”

“You might want to eighty-six that tie before you head home.” Her hands make a gesture towards his chest.

He looks down and sees the dark brown spots across the blue silk fabric and immediately begins pulling the knot loose.

“Thanks.” He huffs and says no more.


	3. Chapter 3

The compound is in ruins. Confused and bloodstained cult members run towards the red and blue lights of federal vehicles suddenly flooding the ranch. They are like startled cattle, eyes rolling and white, and he wonders how many of them will be salvaged in the end - how many of them will actually be thankful for being ‘saved’.

In the chaos and smoke Hotch finds Reid and Prentiss clinging to each other like survivors of some horrible calamity. Which is exactly what they are, a small, silent voice reminds him. He remains apart, giving them their moment, watching for signs of collapse that he will have to hastily shore up in order to keep them whole and moving forward. His responsibility, after all, is to the team.

Reid seems agitated, almost on the verge of tears as he holds Prentiss close and whispers to her. Hotch watches as Prentiss’s expression shifts to one that he’s never seen before - understanding, concern, thankfulness. She raises a bloody hand and gently cups Reid’s face, giving him a look that says her relief is genuine. He’s too far away to hear them, but Hotch can read the words ‘we’re okay’ on her lips. Then she pulls the genius close again and holds him until her knuckles turn white across his coat.

He’s taken aback by her naked display of emotion. He knows that they are friendly, and though their friendship seems an unlikely one, he is happy that they have connected. It makes the team stronger and it means that he worries about Reid a little less. But he’s never seen Prentiss reveal so much before. Her manner is always cool, detached, and perhaps even a bit glib. He assumes that she has a thicker skin, or that she possesses some mild sociopathic tendencies that make emotional connections less relevant to her. But now he sees his mistake clearly, as if a light has been switched on.

When the standoff went to hell Rossi expressed his doubts about Reid and Prentiss, but Hotch had just straightened his shoulders and said that he had absolute faith in the ability of his agents. It wasn’t a complete lie - Dave would’ve been able to read that a mile away - but it wasn’t entirely the truth either. At the time he had thought, _I can depend on Prentiss - she’ll be under control_. But now he isn’t so certain.

A paramedic approaches and separates Reid from Prentiss. She gives him a reassuring smile and allows the EMT to lead her to an ambulance for treatment. Hotch watches her limp to the back of the bus before he strides up in all of his authority.

“How are you doing?” He asks, half to her and half to the EMT.

“Lacerations, moderate bruising, possible sprained ankle and a mild concussion.” The EMT rhymes it off without looking up from his patient.

Prentiss huffs and shakes her head. “I’m fine. Really.”

“You’re going to the hospital.” He gives her a look that says it’s useless to argue with him and she just gives him a sullen look back. He withstands her insolence and then turns to the EMT. “Would you give us a minute?”

She waits until the paramedic is gone. “I don’t need-”

“It’s not up for debate.”

“Fine.” She grits out. “You’re the boss.”

“I’m pleased that you remembered.” He holds her glare, giving her nothing back that she can act upon. Irritation rises in her face, giving it colour that can be seen even under the dried blood. “It may not feel like it now, but this is going to come back at you. Eventually.”

“Hotch, I told you I’m-”

“Yes, you’re fine. I heard you.” He says a little too quickly as her insubordination crawls under his skin again. He’s going to have to work on that. “But I need you to stow your misplaced rebellion for a second and really listen to me.”

Hotch sighs and then awkwardly sits next to her on the lip of the ambulance. He tries to look casual and utterly fails when he realizes that he is incapable of slouching. 

“I think that you and I are similar in many ways, Prentiss. I think that’s why we grate on each other.”

Her eyebrows rise slightly; at least he has her attention.

“I know that I would react as you have if I were in your position tonight. I’d be ‘fine’ and I’d despise all of the fussing. But the truth that we can’t escape is that nights like this one leave their mark. It _will_ catch up with you.”

“You think I don’t know this?”

“I think you disregard it because your previous experience has told you that you can handle it alone. And maybe you’re right.” He turns to give her a meaningful look. “But in case you’re wrong this time… in case you’re wrong about it some time in the future… I want you to come to me with it. Not because I’m your supervisor, but because I’ll understand what it really means for you. I understand that these things can be… difficult for people like us. Not everyone deals with it in an obvious way.”

She just stares at him, her bruised mouth hanging open in purples and scarlets and browns.

“I need to know that you’ve _heard_ me, Prentiss.”

She nods once, slowly. 

“Good.” He stands and shakes out the creases in the suit that he’s been wearing for two days, suddenly uncomfortable with the atmosphere he has created. “Then I’ll assume you’re fine until such time as you inform me that you are not.”

“Thank you, sir.”

He looks to see if she is dismissing him, but all he sees is fatigue. It only occurs to him then that she has been up for two days straight as well, all while being beaten. He tries to think of something supportive to say - because for the first time he feels badly for her - but she cuts him off before he has a chance.

“Hotch, if you want someone to actively worry about, I’d start with Reid.”

“Yes, I can already see the guilt forming in him.”

“I’ve told him that none of this is his fault but it’s pretty obvious that he doesn’t believe me. I don’t want him to carry this around with him, but I… I don’t know what else to say…”

She looks away into the distance, the red and blue lights highlighting the edges of the blanket wrapped around her. It seems impossible to him that she might be asking his advice, especially since he holds all of them at arm’s length in the first place. He stands silently and waits for her to laugh off her statement or do something equally flippant, but she just sits there. He suddenly becomes concerned when he doesn’t have anything helpful to offer her because he finds that _he wants to be helpful_.

“You can’t change him, Prentiss. Just… be a friend to him. We could all use a few more friends.”

She pulls her blanket closer and seems to forget that he is there. He turns away and swallows against the sudden dryness in his throat. He realizes that that is possibly the only conversation they’ve had that didn’t end in one of them wanting to shoot the other.


	4. Chapter 4

“Agent Prentiss, stay on point please.”

“Sir, I was just pointing out that Mr. Revell’s lack of a verifiable alibi is suspi-”

“I’m not sure how investigations were run in your last assignment, _Agent_ , but at the FBI we don’t make accusations without proof. If you cannot follow this simple rule, then you may observe this interview from the other side of the glass.”

Hotch points towards the two-way mirror in the interrogation room and keeps his voice cold and even. Prentiss looks as if she wants to flay him where he sits, but her eyes keep flicking to the interviewee nervously.

“Sir. I fail to see why asking Mr. Revell about his whereabouts during the murders should be beyond the scope of this interview.”

“You fail to see it because it is not your place to do so. It is mine.” Hotch spreads his hands out across the table claiming the space away from her. “I’m afraid that you’ve been as useful as you can be in this, Prentiss. You may go.”

“Pardon?” Her tone doesn’t entirely hide the hysterical edge underneath it.

“Please send the officer on guard back in when you leave.”

He doesn’t look at her, shuffling his case notes instead and then turning his body to face Revell completely. He hears her chair scrape backwards louder than is necessary and then the whisk of the security door opening too quickly and slamming home too abruptly. He sighs.

“She’s a handful.” Revell mutters.

“Political Correctness has affected the Bureau just like any other government agency.” Hotch keeps his voice low. “She’s ill-suited to this work and she knows it. Just like most of them.”

Revell catches his last sentence and his mouth curls in a minute smile. Hotch hides his smile entirely.

“Now, where were we, Mr. Revell?”

~~~~

He walks into the observation room and only sees a hint of her face in the corner of the darkened suite. Rossi strides towards him with his characteristic ‘Gotcha!’ smile.

“You’re a chameleon, Aaron.” He chucks Hotch on the shoulder. “It’s scary but I love it. Revell doesn’t even realize that he’s dug his own grave yet. Look at the smile on his face…”

Hotch looks through the two-way mirror and sees Revell slouched in his chair, unconcerned about his fate.

“Well, we always profiled hubris alongside the misogyny.” Hotch murmurs. “He just needed a ‘friend’ to confide in.”

“Yeah, well he sure did that. I’ll go find the sheriff and see what’s taking the locals so long about searching Revell’s property. It’d be nice to get some evidence to tie a big damn bow around this guy.”

Rossi smiles as he prepares to go and shake the LEO trees a bit. “Good work, you two.”

Hotch looks over at Prentiss again. She straightens as she heads for the door as well.

“Prentiss.” He stops her with a hand on her arm. When she makes eye contact, he lets her go. “I’m sorry about that.”

“Why? It went exactly as we planned - it was perfect…”

“Still.” He resists the urge to look away. It had all been an act but he feels… _odd_ about it nonetheless.

“Hotch.” Prentiss lets his name hang in the air as she raises a dubious eyebrow at him.

“I needed to say it.”

“Fine, but it was completely unnecessary.” Her smile is lopsided, perhaps ironic. “And I thought that Reid was the only one who never forgot anything…”

“Why do you say that?”

“I called you a misogynist once, Hotch, and now I can see that worries you.” Prentiss reaches for the door and turns. “But I’m not sure why my personal opinion should bother you at all - unless you feel it’s effecting my performance?”

“It isn’t.”

“Good.” She gives him another smile, this one is perfunctory, and leaves the room.

She makes a good point - and he can’t nail down why he is bothered by it - but it just seems wrong to call Prentiss anything less than capable, even if it is in the service of trapping a murdering psychopath.


	5. Chapter 5

The prosecutor shakes their hands and reminds them what time and which part of the court building to report to for their testimony. Hotch is underwhelmed by the man’s prep session and holds Prentiss back until they are left alone in one of the D.A.’s conference rooms.

“Are you comfortable with everything? Do you have any questions?” He can’t help the lawyer in him.

Prentiss stifles a flash of irritation, but just barely. “I’ve done this before.”

“Not like this, you haven’t. We’re ‘expert witnesses’ - our statements can make or break this case. And like it or not, we have to be likeable in the jury’s eyes.”

“Are you worried that I’m not likeable?”

He breathes out slowly in an effort to calm his need to battle her. “I’m saying that even the little things count. For example, that guy didn’t discuss what you should wear: it should be something demure yet warm. Avoid black or any outfit that might make you appear too severe or mannish.”

Colour rises in her cheeks. “I can’t believe that you just told me what to wear. Would you like to cut my food at lunch as well?”

“Prentiss, you’re a beautiful woman - _that_ will be your first impression on the jury.”

He notices that her flush deepens. “Like it or not, that could be enough of an excuse for some to discount your views entirely or to resent you. You need to be personable enough that they’ll listen to you, but not so extraordinary as to stir up any gender prejudices. It’s not logic that we’re fighting here, it’s instinct - as petty and banal as it gets. I hate that this is still a factor, but I’d be doing you a disservice if I pretended like it didn’t matter. This case is too important to be hung up on such an inconsequential detail.”

Prentiss’s expression turns neutral as she stares at him. “You have some pretty significant control issues.”

“So long as we win the battles that we must, I’m fine with whatever people think of me.” He’s never put that into words before, but the moment he says it to her, he knows that he has felt that way for as long as he can remember.

She nods slowly, eyes flicking all over him as if he’s an alien thing that has just manifested before her.

“May I ask you a personal question, Prentiss?”

“Since you’ve already critiqued my wardrobe, I suppose that we’re through the looking glass…” Her mouth curls a fraction.

“Chauvinism seems to be a sore spot for you, and yet you chose a career in a field that is male dominated and still secretly embraces a certain level of misogyny. I have to wonder why.”

He doesn’t expect her to answer him. He just wants her to know that he _sees_ it, that it strikes him, and that he finds it interesting. As much as she gets under his skin, he finds her contradictions curious. He wonders if he appears as confusing to her, and then banishes the thought. None of us is as fascinating as we imagine we are.

She sighs and turns back to the desk to retrieve her case notes. He knows that it is just his imagination but it seems as though she’s rearranging her invisible armor of sighs and sarcasm and meaningful eyerolls against him. He reminds himself that he doesn’t expect her to answer, but then she speaks.

“You’ve worked with my mother - you’ve seen what sort of a person she is. Tough, unflappable, determined… Whatever my issues with her, she stood tall as a vivid example of what a woman had to be in a man’s world when I was young. They say that women become their mothers…”

He snorts in spite of himself. “Freud has been largely disproved at this point.”

“That’s true.” She shocks him with a genuine smile. “But she showed me that we cannot expect the world to change unless we are willing to do the work for it ourselves. Although, if I’m being honest with myself… and with you…”

She looks at him with a focus he’s rarely seen. “And that’s what you were hoping for, wasn’t it? Even if you thought I wouldn’t give it to you…”

He swallows hard and wonders if she can read him that well, or whether it is just a lucky guess.

“If I’m being honest,” She continues. “I didn’t choose anything. I was placed in the path of this job and was just self-aware enough to realize that I’d never be good at anything else. It suits me, and I it, sexist dinosaurs notwithstanding. Mystery solved.”

Her gaze slides away from him as her hands curl the edge of a file folder. It occurs to him that she might never have admitted this before.

“You’ll be fine.” He says quietly and then stiffly turns to the door.

“Would you like _my_ advice about tomorrow?” Her voice pulls him up short and he turns just as she brushes past him into the busy hallway. “Wear the grey suit. The one with the soft check in it - and the dark purple tie. It gives you a sort of Jimmy Stewart quality, and no one hated Jimmy Stewart.”


	6. Chapter 6

They are delivering an arson profile in Kansas City when Haley calls for the fourth time since 9a.m. He sends the call to voicemail, like all of the others, and listens as Reid explains the arson branch of the triad of psychopathy to a room full of cops. Prentiss shifts back and forth next to him but when he looks at her, she is focused on Reid as well. She generally isn’t a fidgeter.

When it comes her turn to discuss the arsonist’s decompensation, she does it without twitching a muscle, just like always.

~~~~

Hotch is attempting telepathic communication with his tumbler of Maker’s Mark when movement distracts his focus. Prentiss crosses the darkened entry and heads for the bar. She hasn’t seen him yet sitting at the far end on the corner stool half-hidden by the draught taps. It takes a few seconds but when her eyes recognize him she shifts her stride tactfully and heads for a nearby banquette instead.

“It’s all right” He sighs. “Sit down. I won’t bite”

“I don’t exactly believe that but, okay…” 

She shrugs and takes up the corner stool opposite his so that they aren’t _beside_ one another - like friends - but they aren’t facing each other down either. Always the diplomat’s daughter, he muses.

“What will you have?” He asks while waving the bartender over.

“What are you drinking?”

“Bourbon.”

“Sounds about right.” She nods to the bartender. “I’ll have what he’s having.”

“Add it to the tab, and bring me another as well.”

“Tab? Surely the Bureau won’t let you expense this.”

“I’m so good at federal paperwork that I could probably expense an Aston Martin Volante for Dave and no one would question it.” He chuckles into his drink and then sees her smiling along with him.

“How many have you had so far?”

“Laughably expensive sports cars? None. Bourbons? Well… a few I guess…” 

She doesn’t say a thing and he is suddenly flooded by the need to armor himself. If Haley had been sitting across from him she’d have wasted no time in telling him that only weak men hide from their problems in a bottle. Weak men like his father, a man who never seemed terribly fragile when he came home from some local bar and beat the crap out of his family. Every time he drinks and every time Haley calls him on it, he can feel his father rising within him. He wonders if his father ever felt better afterwards, if the release helped him with the fear of failure that loomed over the man. Did it seem as if his life crumbled a little slower when he tried to reassert his authority with his fists? Sometimes Hotch gets close enough to want to test that theory, and that’s always what sends him to a cab or a cold shower or the backbreaking sofa.

“I don’t need a lecture.” He spits out suddenly.

Prentiss lowers her tumbler and looks at him as if he’s just started talking about fly-fishing or something equally dull. “I’m not sure what you’re hoping to get out of this evening, but I just wanted a quiet drink in a dark, safe place. I can move if you want to be alone.”

“I… I… no, I don’t think I want to be alone.” He worries his forehead with his hand. “I’m sorry - I guess that statement wasn’t for you.”

He can feel her eyes on him. She’s making him doubt himself again - she seems to have an eerie talent for it.

“I always feel like I’m apologizing to you, Prentiss. It’s annoying.”

“I agree.”

He hears her sigh and when he looks up she is smiling into her tumbler. She drains her drink and then something weird happens: he starts to chuckle. She looks up and after a beat her face melts into a brilliant grin. He’s seen her smile like that once or twice with Reid but never expected to be on the receiving end of one himself.

“Would you care for another?” He nods towards her empty glass.

“If it’s on the government’s dime - absolutely.”

He waves over the bartender again.

“You make me… uneasy at times, Prentiss.”

“I don’t believe that I’m drunk enough to have this conversation.” She says tiredly.

“What conversation?”

“The one where we open up and come to some sort of détente that makes us closer, better people overall.” She’s saying it with a heavy dose of disdain. “You know… _feelings_ , and other associated crap…”

“Don’t do that.” He murmurs.

“Do what?”

“Act like you’re the world’s first living heart donor. You’re not fooling me and there’s no one else here to see it. I may be drunk and moody, but I’m still a profiler, Prentiss.”

She looks away from him and forces a blank expression across her face.

“I watch you with the others, especially Reid and Garcia. You genuinely care for them. You love the runts more than the rest.”

She gives him a hard look.

“I can’t tell if it’s because you think of yourself as a runt too, or if you’re just overprotective in general. Maybe you want to be worshipped…”

“You know, every time I start to feel like maybe I’ve misjudged you, you say something remarkably offensive to me.” She lowers her voice but adds some venom to it at the same time. “I don’t think that you’re a misogynist anymore, I think that you just don’t understand women. That’s probably why you’re here baiting me after a case instead of flying home and dealing with your troubled marriage. You say that we’re alike but I can point to one glaring difference: I say what I think. Maybe that’s not wise but I don’t have too many regrets on that score. Whatever’s going on at home, Hotch, _deal with it_. Quit making your marriage about the team, and quit making the team suffer for your marriage.”

She drains her second drink and stands.

“Prentiss…”

“Thanks for the booze and don’t even think about apologizing again.”

“You misunderstood…”

“I’ll see you at the airstrip tomorrow.”

She walks out of the hotel bar as if nothing has passed between them - as if she hasn’t just chewed off a moderate portion of his ass. He slams his hand down on the bar earning him a warning glare from the bartender. He breathes deeply and raises his hands in mock surrender. The guy walks over a moment later and slides Hotch’s bill to him.

“You’re done, pal.”

“Yes, fine.” 

Hotch pays the tab and heads for the elevator bank. He feels blood heating his ears and knows that they are probably bright red by now. Thank god he isn’t sharing a room on this case. 

The elevator releases him and he calmly walks to his room, before slamming the door harder than he should. She’s gotten to him _again_. It is starting to get ridiculous. They have worked together for over a year and things aren’t getting better. And she hadn’t given him a chance to explain himself. He’s never thought of his ‘runts’ as anything less than wonderful - in fact he is proud that misfits and oddballs populate his team. Even All-American Morgan has his quirks. It is the only place where he feels he fits in. God knows he doesn’t feel that way at home… He was trying to tell Prentiss how happy it makes him to see her take them on, that she can give them the emotional response that he can’t. Why wouldn’t they worship her for that? Even he is in awe of her emotional frankness when she chooses to express it. He doesn’t think he’s ever been given that choice.

“Damn that woman!” He hisses as he clumsily strips and tries to figure out the hieroglyphs of the shower. It is a failure to top a day of failures when all he can conjure up is cold water. He scrubs himself raw as he tries to figure out _why_ he can’t tell Prentiss that there is a freedom about her that he envies.


	7. Chapter 7

After the Hardwick interview, he stands in silence before his team and waits for their judgment. He and Reid had made an agreement to explain the incident as soon as they got back to Quantico, but Reid leaves out the part about _why_ Hotch had allowed Hardwick to get the jump on them both. The team surrounds Reid like a Roman phalanx, still believing him to be the defenseless boy that Hotch has seen melt away in the path of a killer. But Hotch finally understands that the genius is evolving - they all are, whether they accept it or not. In the end, the focus is on Reid, and Hotch is a little relieved until he catches Prentiss staring him down from her desk.

It takes her two days to find the right moment, but when she arrives at his darkened office long after every one else had gone home, he isn’t surprised to see her.

“If you put him in that situation again, I’ll leave you with a permanent reminder of how flawed your strategy was.”

His anger crests from out of nowhere. She is just a shadow in his doorway, outlined by the muted colour of the bullpen beyond, but without features she could be anyone. She could be Haley.

“Prentiss.” He growls and it sounds like ‘fuck off’. “Your willful disrespect of my authority is not something that I have to be polite about after hours.”

“Like I give a damn, Hotch. And it’s not disrespect if I’m just pointing out an obvious truth.” She steps into the office and her shadow takes on detail. “Your personal life nearly got Reid killed and I will not stand for that.”

“I understand that you two are friends-”

“Yes, we are.” She interrupts. “I don’t have that many, so I’d appreciate it if you could keep him alive. That’s a big part of your job, isn’t it? We’re supposed to be… important.”

He’s glad that there is a desk between them because the obstacle gives him a chance to pause and rein in his urge to hit her. How dare she suggest that the team isn’t important to him? They are his charge, his care, his primary concern… they keep him up nights and weigh him down with things that he feels he can’t share. They are more important than his damned marriage, as Haley has screamed at him for _years_ and, only three days before, has emphasized with legal papers. And what he’s told no one is that if his actions had cost Reid his life that day, there would be very little to prevent Hotch from eating his gun afterwards.

“You don’t understand, Prentiss.” He barks suddenly. “You have a sliver of the whole picture - that’s all - but you’re happy to pass judgment on that, aren’t you?”

“Well, if there’s more, I’d like to hear it.” She crosses her arms in front of her, preparing to give as good as she gets. “I’d like to believe that you’re _not_ just a callous ass who decided to have a dick-waving contest with some deviant who wasn’t smart enough to avoid getting caught in the first place.”

“Get. Out.” He slams his desk hard enough to make the lamp flicker.

“No!” She strides forward and leans into the light just enough so that he can see her fury first hand. “This is Reid we’re talking about! Your stoic leader crap is unacceptable this time. What the hell were you thinking? How could you let Hardwick play you?”

He stands and jabs a finger at her. “I wasn’t played.”

“Really, Hotch? I’ve listened to the interview session. He flipped you like a dirty area rug and the only reason that both you and Reid aren’t in a morgue somewhere is because that kid has some kinda savant ability to spin bullshit when he’s terrified. So just stow your blustering and the ‘Supervisory Special Agent’ nonsense and just _tell me what happened_!”

“You want to hear me say I screwed up, well, I SCREWED UP, ALRIGHT?” His voice rings off the ceiling tiles, the pre-fab office furniture, and the elevator doors down the hallway. Then, like a broken thing, he collapses back into his chair. “I screwed up…”

“I think we’ve covered that.” Her voice shakes and yet still seems insanely loud for some reason. “I just want to understand it… why did-”

“She’s leaving me.” He whispers and he’s sure that she doesn’t hear him. “It’s just… it’s… it’s just over now.”

He can’t look at her. God, why did it have to be her? A jackal would’ve been more sympathetic.

“The papers were delivered that morning…”

“Hotch…”

“…I told Reid, but not until afterwards…”

“Hotch?”

“…I’m pretty sure there’s someone else…”

“Are you going to fight?”

“What?” He looks at her then. “Fight? Fight what?”

“Aaron, are you going _to fight for her_?”

He watches her lean forward in the shadows and suddenly the anger drains out of him. God only knows what it looks like on his face. He shakes his head slowly.

She doesn’t say anything. After a long, uncomfortable silence he hears the soft whisk of her moving, and then sees a pale hand reach for his bottom desk drawer out of the corner of his eye. She pulls out the half empty bottle of 12 year old single malt and the two tumblers that he keeps in there behind the row of vertical files. He watches her pour two fingers into each tumbler, and then perches on the edge of his desk as she nudges a glass in his direction.

“Have you been talking to Rossi?”

“No.” She stares him down as she sips her scotch. “But it’s where _I’d_ hide it…”

He looks at the untouched glass before him and lets out a long sigh. He drains it without looking at her. The glass gets put back down, and she refills it.

“You know that you’ve already made your decision, don’t you?” It isn’t really a question, although she frames it that way. She’s just giving him a gut check. He looks at her and lets his shame hang on his face, as if he has nowhere else to put it.

Her expression softens slightly - eyes widening, brows creased just so - before she looks away from him and down at her shoes. “I’m sorry.” She whispers.

“Why?”

Her eyes return to his and when they do, she slides behind the bland mask of indifference again. “I just _am_ , okay?”

She stands and finishes the last of her drink, letting the heavy tumbler thump against his still-untouched refill. He watches her walk around the desk and into the gloom outside of his lamp thinking that she has said all that she intends to. Then she stops by the door and turns back.

“I know that you won’t tell the others until it’s necessary, and that you won’t accept their help.” Her shoulders roll once, uncomfortably. “But if you need anything… we’re the same type of person… and I’ll be there. Whenever.”

He’s about to voice his SSIC line of ‘I’m fine’ when she waves him off with a frustrated sigh.

“I _know_ that you won’t accept it, Hotch, but it’s _there_ anyway. It was important that you make me hear that once, and I’m giving it back to you now with equal weight. I never took that offer lightly and you shouldn’t mistake this one for a standard condolence. Just remember that.”

She is a silhouette at the door for a second before she turns and slips away. He doesn’t know how long he watches the empty doorway, still seeing her phantom outline there, before he picks up his scotch and swallows it down with her words.


	8. Chapter 8

The faces float in front of him like a hazy carousel. Morgan, J.J., Dave, Garcia, Strauss… _Christ, what was she doing here?_ Later, he sees Reid, and he looks awful - Hotch can’t figure out why and wishes that he could work up enough energy to give a shit about that. He has a few horrifying moments when he sees Foyet grinning down at him and his whole body strains to flee like the scared animal that he is. Thankfully, those moments don’t last long. He suspects drugs, or perhaps he’s finally lost his mind… either way, he can’t trust what he sees anymore. In time, there is Haley and Jack. Jack smiles. Hotch tells him he’s missed him - he doesn’t care if Jack is really there to hear it or not. It won’t make his statement any less true. He sees doctors and nurses, he sees men with guns and suits, and he forgets them just as quickly.

The only one he doesn’t see is Prentiss and that inexplicably hurts.

~~~~

He wakes into the fuzzy half-light that his life has become. He has no idea what time it is, but his room is dark - it must be late. He attempts to shift himself in the bed but his midsection screams at him and he can hear the heart rate monitor accelerate beside him as he tries to breathe through the pain.

“You probably shouldn’t do that.” Her voice barely makes a dent over the pounding of his blood in his ears. He looks around and finds a silhouette by the door. It occurs to him that he might be hallucinating but why would he be hallucinating _her_?

“It’s fine.” He hisses.

“This is so far from ‘fine’ that you couldn’t find it with a map.”

She’s right, of course. He doesn’t have any idea how he’s going to come back from this. He feels weak and vulnerable and egregiously violated, and he has these spasms of conscious thought where all he can think is that he wished that Foyet had just killed him. It sits like a weight on his chest, getting heavier as time passes, the knowledge that he can’t protect anyone least of all himself. But he won’t have to pretend with her - he can save his Jiminy Cricket optimism for the others, but not her. She won’t buy it.

“Prentiss.” He whispers, having nothing more to say. It doesn’t matter; she starts talking instead.

“This thing that Foyet has created, this torture porn fixation that he has with you… I understand it, Hotch. I know it like I know my own skin. We’ll get him. I promise you that we’ll get him one way or another, and when we do, we’ll wring every last cent of the debt he has created here from him.”

She nods towards Hotch with her chin and as the light catches her face, he sees her rage for the first time. The rage isn’t all for him - it’s too controlled, too methodical. She’s been living with it for a long time. He wants to ask questions - so many questions - but his head is too cloudy. He can barely make out her edges now. Another automated dose of morphine must have kicked in.

“No…”

“You’re in no position to argue.” She steps towards the bed and he realizes how cold he is because where she grips his hand is scorching. “Besides, I let you down, and I’m not comfortable with that on my conscience.”

He’s sinking fast - he can’t see anything anymore. All he knows is the hand of fire that he’s clinging to fiercely. He tries to mount a defense, but all he can make his mouth do is shape the word ‘no’ again. She hasn’t let him down. He wants her to know that she’s being ridiculous and that he’s counting on her to be pragmatic instead. But it’s a futile effort as he falls away into darkness again.


	9. Chapter 9

There’s blood everywhere - splattered across his clothes, slicking his knuckles, in gorgeous arcs across the beige carpet… He even thinks that he can taste it: a satisfying coppery tang that coats everything. Foyet stares up at him with a stupid dead grin on his face and Hotch starts in again, using everything he’s got until that grin is gone forever. Morgan tries to pull him away, but Hotch swings at him brutally before turning back to make sure that Foyet is beyond irrelevant. 

Then, he’s moving again. The team step out of his way as he barges past, their fear is only half for the terror that they’ve just seen. The other half is for the look on his face. He tears the window seat in his old office apart and gently lifts Jack up and out.

“I helped you, Daddy.”

“You sure did, buddy.” He hides his face in Jack’s shoulder until he realizes that he’s hugging his son while covered in the blood of the boy’s mother and the man who killed her. He looks around frantically and sees J.J. at the door. He mouths the word ‘please’ and she goes into protective mom mode in an instant. Jack doesn’t want to leave him but Hotch puts the last of his energy in smiling at his son.

“I’ll be with you soon, Jack.”

J.J. whisks him away and the shaking takes hold of Hotch in earnest. He tries to stand, but he has nothing left and his legs cut out on him sending him back to the floor next to the ruined window seat. 

_Haley’s dead. Foyet killed Haley._

The guilt hits him with both barrels then. It was one thing to accept the blame for failing Haley as a husband, and he’s still working on that. But it was another thing entirely to allow the thing that replaced her in his life in importance to destroy her. The taint of Hotch’s life has stolen Jack’s mother from him. It isn’t right; she didn’t deserve that. He’d once wondered how he would survive Foyet, but now, in this exact moment he fervently wishes that Foyet had killed him instead of her. Jack would be better off, the grief would’ve catalyzed the team, and he would have nailed Foyet in the process. Hotch’s death would’ve been more _useful_.

He can’t leave this place - his legs don’t work and he has no energy left to fight, or to feel, or to breathe. His failure as a leader, a father, and a man is complete and he just wants to be left alone to crumble like Ozymandias in the desert. But there’s a hand on his shoulder squeezing so hard that it’ll probably bruise.

_Just let me go. Please._

He suddenly remembers Prentiss’s bedside promise to wring retribution from Foyet and he sort of hates her that she was simultaneously so right and yet so wrong about how that would play out. At the time, he had hoped that she was speaking from experience, but now he knows that she was just talking out her ass like anyone else would. He doesn’t bother to wonder why she would do that to him - he just hates her for it. She gave him false hope that resulted in the murder of his wife. Maybe it’s not fair to blame her, but it’s all he has left to cling to and the small part of him that doesn’t want to disappear is desperate for something to hold onto.

The hand on his shoulder shakes him and he rounds on it fueled by this new anger hoping that she’s there so that he can lash out. _She can handle it… she might even understand it…_ But it’s Rossi looking down at him, mouthing words of sympathy, and he deflates all over again. Dave pulls him to his feet and shoulders his weight as he leads him out of the house like a shaky newborn foal. His friend is talking in a steady stream and it’s all about Jack: we’ve got Jack, Jack’s okay, Jack’s asking for you… And by the time he’s sitting in the back of a fleet vehicle, his anger has been replaced by his last responsibility: his son. He’s left his anger back in that murder house, but he feels naked without it, as if responsibility alone isn’t enough to ensure his drive to survive. He needs to be there for Jack but he also needs something else, and sitting in bloody clothes with his marriage irrecoverably over and his job fading into the background, he has no clue what that something else might be.


	10. Chapter 10

The funeral is awful just like all funerals are. Why had he agreed to this? Public displays of extreme emotion were abhorrent to him, and the civilized displays that people put on at funerals were even worse. Christ, even Strauss had shown up - it made him nauseous until she tried to bully him into retirement, and then it was almost like old times. That battleaxe nearly made him smile.

It’s for Jack, he thinks but then he revises his statement: it’s for the Brooks family. They never thought much of him, especially after the divorce. He was a failure as a lover, a husband, and a protector - the least he could give Haley’s family were their trappings of mourning. But still, he hates this.

Rossi wanders over like an old hound that has lost the scent of something. The team has a case; they are moving on, and he can’t blame them although the sudden flash of rage he experiences makes him rock on his feet a little. He’s their leader and they aren’t supposed to do anything without his authority - it’s how he’s always looked out for them. But now he can’t be trusted, now he’s just dead weight and they have to do what makes sense and leave him behind. He’s failed them as well.

Rossi claps him on the shoulder and heads back to the group who are giving Hotch sheepish looks and tight smiles of apology. They move quickly - it must be a bad one - and then his gaze finds Prentiss. He’s barely noticed her the last few days and can’t recall a single word that’s passed between them, but now she’s standing still staring at him while the team runs out of the reception center. She’s waiting for him because they don’t act without his say so. She’s calm, sure of herself, as if she could wait forever.

He feels a sliver of purpose edge its way into his grief - no bigger than a single sheet of paper trapped between the pages of an epic book - but it’s there and she gave it to him. He straightens his shoulders and sets his mouth to a straight line rather than a frown.

“Go.” He says quietly though he knows that she can’t hear it across the room.

She sets a determined look on her face and nods once. Then she juts her chin out at him and arches an eyebrow for a second before she turns and follows in the team’s direction.

_Chin up ‘til we get back._

He feels like smiling but can’t quite make it happen. He’ll do his best or he’ll never hear the end of it from her.


	11. Chapter 11

Everyone says that he’s come back too soon but he just can’t spend his time cooped up in his condo trying to fill the hours between when he drops Jack off at daycare and when he picks him up again. Plus, he realizes with shock, he has about three casual outfits in his entire closet. His suits just hang there and stare him down each morning with their purpose. His whole life has been work - it is the cause of all of this - but he doesn’t know who he is without it. He grimaces at his immaculate clothing when he understands that he’s in a co-dependent relationship with his career. 

Hotch slides into a suit and breezes into the Behavioral Analysis building without much thought. It feels good to be on autopilot - too good, really - and that’s probably why it’s a huge mistake. He goes through the motions: he sits in on case briefings, he goes to the obligatory psych sessions, and even takes a status meeting with a resentful Strauss. But he’s just numb. Everyone talks at him but their words blow through him as if he’s made of vapor. He can’t work up the energy to give a damn about any of it and finds himself clockwatching until it’s time for him to fulfill his responsibilities to Jack again. Still, at least he has a place to go every day…

The nights are different. His mind sleeps during the day but erupts in the darkness with memories of blood and pain and unimaginable violence. He yells himself awake, tied up in bed sheets and guilt, with Foyet’s scars eating away at his abdomen. The worst part is Jack running into his room, leaping into his chest and telling his dad that he’s there to protect him - the monsters under the bed aren’t real. He holds Jack close and tells him that this is the last time - he’s got to pull himself together - but in the end he just sends Jack to spend more and more time with his aunt. He’s finally failing at the last thing that’s keeping him here. 

He’s approved for field duty again and within a week gets into a knock down, drag out fight with a fleeing suspect. Two weeks after that he almost runs over a guy during a high-speed pursuit. The incidents skirt to edge of operational acceptability and Morgan gives him a quiet talking to but doesn’t pull him from the team. He’s not sure if that pleases him or not. They all look at him cautiously now. He’s their leader - diminished, yes, but still the one that they look to for guidance. They need him to be who he was but all that remains of that man is a brittle fragility that is held together by his suits and random acts of violence. He doesn’t _feel_ anything else. He finds himself wondering if the world will continue to dim around him until the details disappear into obscurity, or if his lack of attention will get him killed before that happens. And, again, neither option evokes fear or anticipation from him.

He drinks a lot more than he used to, hoping to encourage his daytime numbness to stay. Sometimes it works and sometimes he goes too far and falls into an overwrought pit that usually ends up with him having weepy arguments with Haley in his mind. Even in death, they’re still fighting one another. He tries to keep it all from Jack but the bottles in the recycling bin give him a sharp wake-up call. When his son asks him what ‘scotch’ is, he knows that it’s just a matter of time before something goes wrong. Instead of asking for help, he just updates his will.

The team does what they can; it’s difficult to get close when he’s spent so many years keeping himself from them. He always thought that connection made him weak, and that wasn’t his role to play. Rossi and Morgan make the only significant headway but they are typical guys and balk at getting too emotional. Reid tries, he really does, but there’s a gap of experience there that’s insurmountable. Garcia smothers him and he resents it but J.J. usually backs her off when she really gets on his nerves - J.J.’s concern is mostly for Jack and he’s sorta relieved that _someone_ has made his son a priority. 

Prentiss just watches. He feels her eyes on him constantly but mostly he ignores it. There are no heated arguments after hours or pointed remarks made at his expense. She doesn’t criticize his behavior or performance and she doesn’t tell him that she’s _worried_. In fact, when he thinks about it, she doesn’t really engage him at all anymore. If he were more present, that might bother him. 

He loses his temper at Reid during a case briefing and Morgan has no choice but to call him out over it and remove him from the case. He decides to turn his forced leave into a long weekend bender, drops Jack off at his aunt’s house, and settles in. Somewhere in the fog of Haley telling him how frail he is and Foyet crowing over his victory and the dreamless sleep that the scotch gives him, he awakens to find Prentiss sitting in his bedroom watching from a gloomy corner.

“You’d better be a hallucination.” He slurs and wonders what day it is.

“You aren’t that lucky.”

“Tell me about it.” He laughs bitterly as he tries to sit up but decides it’s a bad idea when his stomach twists. “How’d you get in?”

“Lock picking is a hobby.”

“That’s just sad, Prentiss… what about the security system?”

“You know what’s sad? That a guy as security conscious as you uses his son’s birthday as his pass code.”

He sinks back into his pillows with a sigh. “Screw you. Just get out.”

“You’re always telling me to leave and it never works out for you.”

“Fuck off.” He says quietly so as not to antagonize his volatile stomach. “Please.”

He hears her moving and is astonished that it takes so little to get rid of her, but then the mattress dips and he feels her hand grasp his tightly. “Not gonna happen. Enough is enough.”

“Enough of what?” He spits. 

“This… messy, half-assed suicide that you’re attempting.” Her tone is so glib that he wants to slap her into something more meaningful. Even though he hates the others for all of their heartfelt sympathy, he hates her flat analysis more. 

“Is this because I insulted your little nerd pet again? Because you’ve been happy to watch me thrash around in my own mess ever since she left me. I’m sorry if my self-destruction is too unsightly for you… that it’s taking so damned long…” Why should it bother her if he turns the end of his life into some sort of kabuki production?

“Hotch-”

He suddenly loathes everything and it’s the most powerful he’s felt in months. He wants to heave up enough hate to drive everyone from him, so that he can fade away on his own terms. He needs to banish them all and the most effective way to achieve that is brutality. The ghost of his father rises in him, and though he’s in no condition to do it physically, he’s always been better with words than his father was.

“Did you think that all I needed was some of your bitchy tough love and a stiff reminder of my general failings? Somehow _you_ were going to succeed where all the others didn’t, right? What makes you so much more insightful about this? You told me that we’d get Foyet. You told me that you’d let me down and that you couldn’t let that stand. Where was your startling insight when he blew Haley’s brains out in her living room, Prentiss? Your arrogance is something else.” He lurches up on one unsteady elbow so that he can glare at her. “Or maybe you decided to go another way. Perhaps all I need is an angry, cathartic grief fuck to snap me out of my spiral… I mean, you’re a practical woman. You’d swallow down the distaste of it if it brought me back to the team, wouldn’t you? And you’d have something to genuinely hate me for afterwards. A win-win for everyone…”

Her usual sarcastic mask slips in the darkness and reveals such undisguised shock that it causes his stomach to roll and he has to swallow quickly to fight back the sudden bile. Her hand is still gripping his and she seems incapable of doing anything but staring, as if she’s watching him take a knife to himself. Then, a moment later her hand leaves his and reaches for his face as a sort of relief outlines her in unexpected lines and creases.

“All I wanted was your anger, Hotch. Thank god you’re still in there…”

His stomach lurches and he pushes her aside so that he can slam into the ensuite bathroom and crash into the tiles just as he pukes up a weekend’s worth of booze and self-pity. His vision goes white and he gives himself over entirely to his body’s instinctual need to rid itself of poison. He heaves until his throat burns and the scars on his abdomen ache and his knees scrape and slide across the cold tiles as they try to keep him upright. He lays his head against the rim of the toilet - it’s disgusting and he doesn’t care. His body is completely drained of fight except for a few experimental twists from his stomach. 

He’s aware of her hands rubbing his back, stroking his neck, as she soothes a cool cloth over him. He thinks he hears her repeat ‘it’s okay’ in a tone that is too gentle to belong to her, and when he feels hands washing his face he opens his eyes and sees that he wasn’t mistaken after all. She’s looking at him like she expected this, as if it’s her duty to help him, and he feels awful that he’s so predictable.

“Don’t.” She says as she scrubs at his half-grown beard with a cloth. “Stop welcoming every failure as another layer to your grief shroud. Not everything is your fault, you know.”

“How?” _How do I come back from this? How do I make it all right again after it’s gone so wrong?_

“Let it in.” Her eyes soften around the edges, as if lost in memory or knowledge, maybe. “Feel it. Do what loves tells you because we only feel this shitty when love is involved. And tell another person… tell me.”

“Why?” He croaks and has to swallow a few times to make his throat work against the acid burn. “Why would you do that for me?”

“Because grief is choking the life out of you, Aaron. And if you don’t start hacking your way through it, you’ll never see daylight again.” She runs a hand along his gaunt cheek. “I’m the safest choice. You _know_ that I’ll never tell anyone a thing. We’re the same.”

It all comes apart then. Every locked door swings open, every secret folded away is blown high into the air to swirl around and cage him in his guilt. His arms reach around her waist and yank her against him. She stiffens under his grip but he doesn’t care. She doesn’t matter, neither does he, only his tremendous parade of failure moves him as he hides his face in her abdomen. He feels the fabric of her shirt dampen against his cheeks but he manages to swallow his sobs so that she doesn’t feel moved to coddle him like a child. Eventually her fingers fall into his hair and gently stroke back and forth. He squeezes her tighter, hoping to cover the hiccupping in his chest. It’s probably a wasted effort, he thinks, once he hears her sniffling above him.


	12. Chapter 12

He’s developed a bad habit: he’s started to imagine what Prentiss would be like in bed. 

Not sexually - which surprises him a little because she is attractive and fetishizing her would be normal. But _emotionally_. He wants to know what she’s like without her armor. He wants to conjure up an image of those fierce angles of dark and light stretched out into the curves and half ellipses of sleep.

It starts when he realizes that he’s never seen her relax, not even when she dozes on the jet. It is as if she’s always half aware of her surroundings. Reid calls it hypnagogia and says that it is fairly common among highly controlled individuals which is why _every_ member of the team does it so often. Sometimes he hates how they can all read one another.

She always stiffens for a split second when he touches her, and then he can see her order her body to obey, to let go, because they’ve saved each other enough times by now to trust the other’s motives. To a certain extent. It is that section that she holds in reserve that fuels his fantasy. What would it take to get past the perfect make-up and custom tailored suits?

He tries to imagine what she wears to bed but every incarnation seems wrong to him, and then, in the end, he decides that it doesn’t matter. He wants to ease her out of her clothes and lose her in one of his old, over washed t-shirts. He wants to hear her sigh and sink into a stack of pillows without worrying about what expression she should be wearing. He wants to sit next to her and watch as her hair tangles and her hands curl into her chest, her legs scissoring lazily through the blankets as she dreams. If she stretches out in the night for something to anchor her, he’d be still, afraid of removing the veil that blinds her while letting him see clearly. She’d never remember it of course, but he’d always know that when she reached out, it was towards him.

He allows himself the fantasy because there is never any danger of it becoming real. His skin prickles at the impropriety of it and it just makes him sit straighter and focus on his paperwork until his eyes hurt. Since it is never going to happen, he doesn’t let his fantasy spool out into more detail - like if she pulls him close and _is awake_ and calls him ‘Aaron’ without a single hint of irony and he pretends that she’s never called another man’s name out in the darkness that way before and he gives himself permission _to need_ , finally…

His mind always takes a step backwards from this. She is not that woman - she would never let him in - and he can’t allow himself to fall unless she promises him safety. And she can’t. 

Fantasy is fine, he tells himself, so long as it isn’t confused with wish fulfillment.


	13. Chapter 13

They do a custodial interview in Oregon. Prentiss isn’t very good at them but, with him, they work answers out of the killer in an almost delicate choreography. They alternate hard and soft, interest and revelation with an endless array of brushed cuffs and head tilts and curved eyebrows. He almost wishes that they could record the interview so that he can go back and watch them dance together.

It’s been years now but these scenes are still rare and precious to him. She’s always there - one hundred percent prepared to back his play, but there is an unspoken deflection of affection between them that has become a habit. She is hesitant to reveal her understanding of him to the others. He doesn’t understand why; she gives so freely to everyone else. She cries with Garcia, she giggles with J.J., she schemes with Reid, she jaws with Morgan, and she even flirts with Rossi. Why does she only give him this, and only when they are alone?

He starts to doubt himself. Perhaps it only _feels_ the way it does because of familiarity. She’s annoying as hell and he’s far too stiff - they are two people who have been forced to spend too much time together and have learned to overlook the qualities that stand in the way of getting the job done. If that weren’t the case, would he still feel that there is the potential for something between them if they ever got around to discussing it? Their lives seem ordinary, sprinkled with random bits of awful, and neither one of them appear to be a candidate for anything more.

But then she sighs and scrapes her chair back in the interview room brushing the edge of his hand as she pulls hers into her lap, and he knows that it’s his turn to go in for the kill. She’s set it up perfectly and he is thrilled by their dance once again.

And so, he wonders.


	14. Chapter 14

He gets mushy when he drinks. Haley used to hate it and routinely poured his scotch out when he wasn’t looking. She used to confront him about it - how he spent so little time at home with her that it was extra insulting that he had to be drunk to do it. She used to say that at least his father had been sort of a _manly_ drunk. 

It was true: his dad was too busy beating his family to waste time on boozy navel-gazing. But now they’re both gone so he can do what he likes with his inebriation. 

Prentiss has seen him drunk several times and never says a word about it. More than once, he’s gone too far with it and she has always poured him into a cab and paid the driver extra to make sure that Hotch makes it into his place safely. He’s tried to hide how much he loves the feeling of letting go that comes with drinking, and he thinks that he’s been pretty successful with that - except with Prentiss. He doesn’t do it too often - not anymore - but she’s seen it enough to spot a pattern there even if it is a subtle one. He assumes that she only mentions the problems that impact her life and her capability to function in the Unit. Clearly, his drinking doesn’t affect either.

He downs another finger of scotch and tries not to feel sorry for himself. He wonders what would happen if he called her right now and asked her to come over.

He doesn’t know what he wants, either from himself or her. And he is too afraid to risk asking what she wants, if anything. It is just easier to pretend that there is nothing there - only _possibility_. He can hold onto possibility indefinitely and fashion a secret, golden future out of it while he smothers it to him. It is the safest alternative for them both, he tells himself while ignoring her voice inside his head that is pissed at his gall of deciding for her.

He pours another finger of scotch and wishes that he had kissed her just once. She is so dark, so full of unsaid things that float just beneath her surface, and he can’t stop wondering what they are. Haley had been the complete opposite and he had adored her once. How has Prentiss become this important to him?

He wishes he had kissed her once and that it was depressingly average. He wants to have her and keep her at arm’s length at the same time. This new failure punches him in the gut and sends him running to the bathroom.

So, two weeks later when a plainer, friendlier brunette stalks him at the jogging park and then asks him out for coffee, he accepts. Beth is normal and guileless, and when he kisses her it is depressingly average. She is easy to please and looks at him adoringly and he is relieved at the lack of effort he has to put into the relationship. Finally, he can point to one thing in his life that is as it is _supposed to be_ and he can pretend that everything is going to be all right in the end.

When the Team comes to his triathlon and he introduces them to Beth for the first time, Prentiss doesn’t say anything. Her smile and manners are perfect even though the others are shocked. Clearly, Beth won’t affect her life or her capability to function in the Unit either.


	15. Chapter 15

She beats him to the coffeepot again, and he wonders how early she gets into the office each day to manage that so consistently. He thinks he’s being quiet but he is barely across the kitchen threshold before she casually turns and hands him his first cup of the day as if they’ve arranged all of this. He smiles in shock, and is surprised in turn when she smiles back and sets about fixing her own mug. Their ephemeral affection stretches and unexpectedly warms the moment; it makes him unusually brave.

“Good weekend?”

She makes an aggressive sound and then turns to face him while rolling her eyes dramatically. “Mother demanded some ‘family time’ so I had to drive to Connecticut in order to be grilled about my life choices in front of her old ambassador cronies. Luckily, I escaped on Sunday and fled to Reid’s place where we sunk into some Thai food and a _Firefly_ marathon. So, it wasn’t a total loss.”

He is momentarily stunned by the length and candor of her response. He usually doesn’t get that many words out of her unless she’s profiling or he’s a little drunk. He suddenly feels that the only reason why she is a mystery to him is because he’s never made an effort to ask her _anything_. He feels deflated when he realizes how much time he has wasted. But he doesn’t have long to ponder it.

“You?” She asks while slurping her coffee.

So, they are sharing now. That’s interesting, he thinks.

“Ah, well, Jack’s soccer team had a game on Saturday so there were plenty of grass stains, skinned knees and consolation pizza. Then on Sunday I helped Beth pack up for another contract gig in New York.”

“Another one, huh? How long this time?”

He wasn’t aware that Prentiss knew about any of the previous contracts.

“A month. Possibly six weeks. There’s a very real possibility that it’ll develop into a full time position for her.”

“Really. How’s that gonna work out for you?”

She knocks him off balance as she asks him for a frank assessment of something that has little relevance to her while casually drinking her morning coffee.

“I imagine it’ll be fine. New York’s not that far away, and we don’t see a lot of each other to begin with.” As soon as he says it, he realizes how cold it sounds. In truth, he doesn’t care if Beth moves to New York or not, and that pretty much sums up how he feels about Beth in general. He is even more surprised that he has all but admitted that to Prentiss.

“Hmmmm.” She murmurs as she holds her coffee to her lips and watches him.

His delight from a moment earlier evaporates as he feels that she is peering through all of his carefully constructed layers at something that he doesn’t care to acknowledge. He falls back into deflection with the familiar sting of defeat and backs out of the staff kitchen.

“Can you tell Morgan that I’d like a word when he gets in?”

She nods and watches him go.

“Thanks for the coffee.” He adds, regretting his need for self-protection.

“Any time, Boss.” Her tone is sarcastic, but when he turns back she is already heading to her desk without a second thought for his reaction.


	16. Chapter 16

He doesn’t even get both feet across the threshold before the shotgun blast hits and blows him back out again. For an agonizing second he can’t breathe in - he desperately wants to but nothing happens. It feels like forever before his senses come back to him in any meaningful way: he hears the SWAT team guys barking orders and feels the stomping of military grade boots reverberating through the porch floor beneath him. He sucks in a huge, painful gulp of air and nearly cries in relief when the motes in the corners of his eyes start to fade. There is pressure on his chest, aside from the escalating pain that is spreading across it in earnest, and he opens his eyes for the first time. Morgan and Prentiss float disembodied above him, terror on their faces melting slightly as he grimaces at them.

“Hotch!” Morgan shouts while jostling him. He wants to tell him that he’s been shot, not deafened. Prentiss just watches him.

“Go!” He manages to breathe out. “Go - don’t let SWAT kill him. There’s still a victim out there we need to find.”

Morgan is about to argue, but Hotch waves him off. “The vest caught it - I’m fine. _GO!_ ”

Morgan hesitates for another second and then disappears after the SWAT guys. Prentiss looks around and he doesn’t understand why until she peers down at him again. The terror is back on her face and he finds it hard to breathe for a second time. He feels her hand land along the edge of his jaw, warm and callused - hands that _work_ , hands that _do_.

“You are such an asshole.” She whispers, terror still holding sway over her.

“The vest…” He starts weakly. He is confused by the woman above him - he’s never met her without her armor before.

“Yeah, I know. But… just… _fuck._ ” Prentiss closes her eyes and shudders a tiny bit, just enough for him to notice.

“Emily…” He reaches out blindly and catches her arm. At the sound of her name she opens her eyes and stares at him as if she is waiting for something she never thought she’d get. Then, there are new sounds and two guys in EMT hats appear on either side of him.

“Can you give us some room, ma’am?” The first guy says while the other prods at Hotch’s vest.

“Lucky. Just caught the edge of the vest. A little more to the left and we’d be havin’ this conversation during a bumpy high-speed ride to the nearest ER.” The second EMT looks up at Prentiss as if he is confused as to why she is still there. “He’s gonna be fine, Agent.”

She must realize that her face is an open book because she closes off entirely as she nods to the paramedic. Hotch feels a stab to see that brief window shut so completely.

“Go.” He wheezes again and tries to smile. “Keep Morgan on a chain. I need someone with a cool head out there.”

Her lips thin in determination and then she steps away. He distinctly feels the warmth of her hand brush along his face and then disappear, like something suddenly falling over a cliff into space. He tries to hold onto that feeling but it is pretty cold lying on that hillbilly’s porch with a Kevlar vest full of 12-gauge buckshot.


	17. Chapter 17

His right side screams as he opens his hotel room door to the knocking that just won’t take a hint and stop. She is pale but holding it together as she lifts a file folder in front of his face and then pointedly slaps it against his chest. He winces; clearly she is still really angry with him.

“My report. Sir.”

This is the kind of subtle insubordination that has been getting to him since the day she arrived in the Unit years ago, but he isn’t angry this time. Part of it is the insane bruise along his ribs, and part of it is the delight he gets out of seeing her lose control because of this situation. She has limits, it would seem, and like a perverse schoolboy he wants to push her, to see what lies beyond them without regard to the consequences. This might be the best chance he ever gets.

“This couldn’t have waited until we got back to Quantico?” He gives her the Hotch scowl and waits.

Her hand is still against his chest, holding her file to him, and then she pushes. Hard. He stumbles back into his room with a groan and then there is a slam and a wall and her lips smash into his while she continues pressing that damned report painfully into his chest. His ribs are throbbing and his head is splitting but he pushes them back towards the bed without thinking at all. 

He hears the pages of the report swish through space and then crumple underfoot as they rip at one another’s clothes. In the end it is hurried and rough. He fumbles with her jeans and ends up rolling them down far enough to get them out of the way. She scrabbles at his pants, scoring his scarred stomach with her rough nails. All he can think about is getting to her and doesn’t bother with finesse or permission as he roughly gets himself free and pushes into her. She goes rigid around him and pain lights up her eyes but he begins thrusting and she doesn’t tell him to stop. She pulls him in, so close that he finds it difficult to breathe and hard enough that he is certain of getting new bruises. Her arms tangle in his shirt fighting to hold onto him in his punishing rhythm. His hips smash into her over and over… _finally…finally…finally…_ until her whole body arches up into him and she cries.

 _Cries_. It almost stops him dead. And then, after a moment, it does. He brushes hair away from her face and holds her, mystified. She opens her eyes and stares as he thumbs away a tear, wishing that the right thing would just fall from his lips.

“Don’t ever do that again.” She croaks, and he goes soft in her realizing what he has just done.

“Emily… I…”

“Don’t ever go where I can’t follow again.” She clarifies. “We have a deal, you and I: we watch each other’s back. We _trust_ each other, even though that’s the last thing we want to do.”

He swallows hard and just stares because he doesn’t know what else to do. She has managed to distill who they have become over five years in three sentences, and he can’t deny any of it anymore because it’s so perfect. He nods. She is beautiful and brutal and _so right_ that it makes him feel twenty I.Q. points dimmer by comparison. She pushes him away, pulls up her jeans, and straightens her shirt while his ribs scream at him.

“I won’t.” He blurts as his brain finally finds something worthy to say. “I won’t forget that again.”

She calls his name - Aaron - bends over and kisses him softly before she leaves and that really matters. It matters more than his bruised ribs or the almost-sex or even her ultimatum, because for a second before she leaves him, he gets a glimpse of _everything_ that she has been hiding away since the day she first set foot in his office.


	18. Chapter 18

They meet by accident in the Bureau elevator a few days after he’s been shot. His ribs are still giving him a lot of trouble, but the moment she steps onto the elevator he forgets them and wonders if he’s having a small heart attack instead. She selects a floor and stands a respectable distance from him as she asks after his ribs, the Loeb case, and Jack. He responds, as he knows he should, with a delicate mix of professionalism and familiarity, and stares at the numbers above the door lighting up and extinguishing as if it is the most fascinating thing he has ever witnessed. His chest is so tight that he thinks he can almost hear his ribs fracturing under the pressure.

The conversation peters out. The elevator is slow. He feels a few seconds away from spontaneous implosion.

“Are we okay?” He whispers.

He feels the atmosphere change as she turns to face him, but he is still looking at the numbers. “I guess that depends on what you do next.”

He looks at her then and sees that expression that she’d left him with in his hotel room. He wasn’t sure if it had been a mistake then, but he knows that she _lets_ him see it now, and before he can consider it, his body moves. He wraps her up and pulls her in, trying to be gentle as his nervous system sends out electric shocks to every body part that will listen. She is soft and goes with him as he moves, but as he pulls on her lower lip, teasing and hoping that she’ll give in a little more, he has a panicked moment when he thinks he has miscalculated. She holds on an instant longer and then gives him what he wants, pulling herself taunt against the creases of his suit. He gasps and then moans as she slides into him and takes over the moment, leaving him breathless in the wake of her smell and her touch.

The elevator dings and she pulls away, putting on a game face in the blink of an eye. He watches her do it and doesn’t even think about his own. The doors slide open on a lonely hallway and she steps forward to press the ‘door open’ button before she turns and draws his lips back to hers with a hand along his jaw. They slip against each other gently, taking them as far as a single, shared breath will allow - and then the elevator door buzzes in complaint. She pulls away with a small smile as he grumbles in protest.

“I think we’ll be just fine.” 

She releases the button and steps through the doors, walking away without looking back as the elevator closes and whisks him to the parking garage. He stands in the cab, all flushed skin and costly creases, and lets his mind hum and his ribs ache. When he reaches his parking level, he walks out on autopilot reaching his car on instinct alone. He leans against the immaculate SUV in his expensive suit and says goodbye to his seemingly well-ordered life as he realizes that somewhere in the last five years he has accidentally fallen in love with Emily Prentiss.


	19. Chapter 19

They fight the sideways rain as they drag themselves across the tarmac and towards their cars. If one believed in pathetic fallacy, then this is an appropriate end to their latest case. Even Reid had been silent on the flight back. He nods at each of them in turn and waits for them to drive off; it’s a little bit precautionary and a little bit procrastination. He’s in no hurry to get back to his empty condo - it’s not like he’ll sleep tonight anyway. He looks over at the last car in the lot and sees Prentiss leaning against it watching him as if they aren’t in the middle of some Biblical flood.

“Wanna get a drink?”

He doesn’t know what to say mostly because all he can think about is getting out of this storm. She suddenly straightens and turns back towards her car like she’s changed her mind.

“Sorry. You probably want to get home to Jack… I wasn’t thinking…”

“He’s at his aunt’s house.” He blurts and she looks back at him. “I’m supposed to pick him up tomorrow. I think I’d like a drink, thanks.”

“Great.” She smiles through the rain and he wonders how she can look so delighted while being soaked to the skin. “Follow me?”

“You got it.”

They’re halfway into the Capitol when Hotch realizes that they are heading to her place. He tries to keep his expectations in check as he parks in the visitor’s lot at her building and waits for her to buzz him in.

“Nice place.” He says, feeling bad about dripping all over her carpet.

“Thanks. Mom pulled some strings with the condo board otherwise I’d never have been accepted.”

“Really. Being FBI wasn’t good enough for them?”

“Too ‘blue collar’ I guess. That’s how Mom refers to it anyway. I tolerate her elitism and interference in very few aspects of my life, but, clearly, condo acquisition is one of them.” The corner of her mouth lifts in a smile as she tosses something at him. “Here - this is probably big enough to fit you. I don’t have any pants though.”

He smirks at the sport shirt in his hands. “The Toronto Maple Leafs? Have you ever been to Toronto?”

“No, but there’s something about cheering for a team that hasn’t won the Stanley Cup in nearly fifty years. It’s simultaneously wonderful and pathetic to have such boundless determination.”

“I never would’ve pegged you as a closet optimist.”

He chuckles and shrugs out of his shirt as she watches him from across her living room. He’s nervous, but he reminds himself that she always makes him feel that way, so he tries to ignore it. She disappears for a few minutes and then reappears in fresh clothes that look comfortable yet still cling to her just so.

“Wanna beer or something stronger?”

“So, we’re _actually_ drinking?” He hopes that he doesn’t sound disappointed.

“Only if you want to. I know that you’ve been cutting back lately.” He feels his back stiffen and she quickly raises a hand to stop him. “Relax. I couldn't care less about your alcohol intake. I knew a lot of alcoholics in the diplomatic core and, trust me, you don’t rate. To put it bluntly, I’d be way more suspicious of you if you’d done this job for as long as you have and _didn’t_ have a vice or two.”

He looks down at his soggy feet and feels a bit foolish. He rolls off his socks and stuffs them in his shoes to avoid looking at her when he answers.

“In that case, I’ll take a beer please.”

“Good.” She wanders off to her kitchen and comes back, handing him a beer before collapsing onto her sofa. He takes a seat at the opposite end, worried about leaving a wet spot and wondering how much room is needed between them.

“And because you won’t ask, no, I don’t think the team takes much notice of your drinking either. Maybe Rossi… but like I said - it isn’t problematic.”

“ _You_ notice…”

“That’s different.” She murmurs and takes a swig of beer. “So, who was it? Your mom or your dad?”

“Dad.”

“Was he abusive as well?”

“You know, this isn’t the conversation I thought we’d be having tonight.” She’s making him more than uncomfortable now.

“Sorry.” She looks away suddenly and it’s like her confidence has taken an unmistakable hit. “I’m not very good at this.”

“Good at what?”

“You know,” Now she’s actually fidgeting. “These ‘human’ moments… situations that don’t require the use of deadly force…”

“Don’t give me that. I’ve seen you with Reid and Garcia and J.J. …”

“But it’s different with you.”

“How?”

“It’s like… there’s more at risk if I screw things up…”

He can’t breathe for a long moment and when his lungs finally kick back in he starts laughing and can’t stop. “ _You’re_ worried if _you_ screw up?”

She looks at him as if he’s just insulted her to her face and he wants to stop laughing but she’s made him so nervous that the action has taken on a life of it’s own. He can’t remember being this agitated around a woman since that audition for _Pirates of Penzance_.

“Could you stop that?”

“It’s just…” Oh, man, just stop laughing already…

She’s suddenly across the sofa and straddled over his hips as she snatches his beer away and silences him with a kiss. His hands grasp her sides hard and then grope their way up her back and into her hair as she pulls on his lips demanding more. There’s a thunk beside him as she puts his beer on the table next to the sofa and then her hands are roughly clutching his hair as she lifts herself higher and forces his mouth open. Then she’s in deep, licking at him and sliding against his tongue until he’s taken over by the crazy impulse to get her as far inside him as possible. He feels her nails against his scalp at the back of his head as she grabs a handful of hair and yanks him back into the sofa cushions. He’s breathless and confused and hideously turned on.

“Emily, what-” He gasps.

“Listen, it’s not like I’m some wallflower.” She’s breathless too but he sees that she’s upset as well and he can’t figure out why. “But the games I’d normally play won’t work here because _you see me_ and it’s almost impossible for me to lie to you. Do you get it? I don’t know how to do this without any camouflage.”

“Okay…” He pauses because he needs a moment while his brain does a hard reboot on him. “Well… we don’t have to do this, you know… if you’re that worried ab-”

She cuts him off with another deep kiss that leaves him moaning when she pulls away with his lower lip between her teeth. 

“You’ve got to be kidding.” She gasps. “You _feel_ this, right?”

“Yes.” He finds her mouth again. “I feel it. I get it.”

“Then what do we do?” Her mouth nips along his jaw and then begins sucking down his throat. She’s pressed so tightly into his chest that he can’t move unless he pushes her off and he has zero intention of doing that because if he loses this feeling he just might explode. 

He’s heard her and it cuts through to the center of him: he feels terribly exposed too. Of course, he wants her in the worst possible way, but it’s the idea of being with someone who understands you without explanation, who gets the job and the fear and the isolation… well, that’s something he’s never had and it makes him impossibly hard all over just contemplating it. But it also means that he can’t hide, he can’t lie, and it won’t be easy like it was with Beth. He won’t be able to switch it on and off again - just get what he needs and then wait until she drifts off so that he can go home and finish his paperwork. And it won’t be like it was with Haley either where he tried to convince himself to be a different man entirely because it was what she needed and, at the time, he needed to be needed that way. Prentiss won’t compromise and she’ll be disappointed in him if he does, so where did that leave them?

“I want you without the armor, Emily. I didn’t think you’d give me that, but since it’s on the table, I’ll confess that the prospect makes me ache for you. And I’m terrified as well because I know that you can read me too. I can’t tell if this is the worst mistake we can make or a stroke of genius. But I want this… I want you…”

She stares at him, and for all that he’s just said, he doesn’t know what she’s thinking. After a moment, she leans in a little closer.

“What if the sex is lousy?”

He chuckles and shakes his head. “The sex isn’t going to be lousy.”

“Such sudden confidence…” 

She murmurs and then wrestles him out of the sports jersey that she gave him minutes before. His arms are free for a second and reach for her, but she’s quicker, capturing his wrists and looping the shirt around them in a surprisingly effective tie. She grabs the excess shirt and pulls his bound wrists up and behind his head, stretching his torso along the sofa ridge and flooding his body with a need to fight back.

“What are you doing?”

He doesn’t like being restrained and he’s not proud of how the spike of fear that accompanies it has made him harder than before. She presses into him forcefully, one hand yanking the tie back to make him acquiesce while kissing him hard enough to make at least one part of him happy.

“I’m testing a theory that I have about you.” She breathes into his mouth. “It won’t hurt - I promise.”

“I’m not worried about you hurting me.” He’s not - he could easily overpower her even in his current position. But it’s an old fear leading all the way back to his childhood, and one that’s also a little too close to his experience with Foyet for comfort.

“It’s about trust, Aaron.” Her lips are traveling down his neck as she keeps his arms taunt and out of her way. “It’s never come easily to us, but I want to see if I can make the discomfort pleasurable.”

She’s made it to his chest and trails a series of lazy kisses along his collarbone and down until she brushes his nipple with her lips. He’s arched back and tense in the spots where she’s focused her heat and then moved on, leaving him to cool and tingle in her absence. When her tongue circles him, his body pushes up and strains towards her, not because he’s enjoying this so much as he’s desperate to feel her.

“See?” She chuckles into his pec and it sends a bolt of electricity to his groin.

“It’s not really what I had in mind.” He growls. _Come closer… I just need you closer…_

“If your hands were free right now,” She moves to his other pec. “Where would they be?”

She starts sucking hard against him and his hips arch up as his head pushes back against the sofa. He closes his eyes and lets out a long breath as he imagines her in his mind, how he’s so often imagined her…

“Everywhere.”

“Be specific.”

“I’d want you out of those clothes. I’d let my fingers trail up along your back as I pulled that shirt off.”

“What do I feel like?”

His eyes are still closed. “You are smooth, warm… but it’s the curve of your back that’s amazing. Like… a note in a piece of music that rises above the rest and makes you vibrate in harmony…”

She hitches a little against him. “What else?”

“I’d ease you out of those pants because I want to feel the curves of you against me. I want to touch everything, Emily. All of the places that I shouldn’t imagine… all of the places that I’m not allowed to think about…”

“Why can’t you think about them?”

“Because it’s unprofessional. Because I can’t be weak and because you don’t want me to.” He’s breathing through his mouth now because in his mind’s eye she’s naked and glaring at him as if she’ll tear him to pieces if he moves an inch in her direction. Her fury is intoxicating - maybe he’s always been attracted to how much she infuriates him.

She shifts against him and he hears the swish of fabric moving on skin. “Does this feel as though I don’t want you?”

He tugs lightly against the tie. “A little.”

She shifts again and lifts away from him completely. He almost opens his eyes but understands that all of this is part of the little game they are playing. He waits for her to come back, and when she does he can feel her heat run along the length of him. But she’s still not quite touching him the way he wants her to.

“Does _this_ feel as though I don’t want you?” She repeats and he opens his eyes. He knows she’s naked but he can only see her outline silhouetted against the rainy windows far behind her. He wants to taste her, any part of her, and wonders if he should ask for permission. She shifts a little, putting more force into pulling the tie back and he arches more acutely under her. Then he feels something brush his pants where he’s rigid against his own thigh. It’s just a whisper of pressure but it sends a throb through him that makes him feel like a wave crashing gracelessly onshore.

“Do you feel weak now?” She whispers.

“Let me touch you.” He husks. “Please.”

“You could do that at any time. You could free yourself.”

“I need you to tell me it’s okay. You have to want it.”

“ _That’s_ what I’m talking about.” Her fingers brush him again and he makes a noise that’s halfway between irritation and pleasure. “When you allow the vulnerability to take hold, it fills that void of power with a stir of something more basic. It’s like when mammals hunt and decide to toy with their prey - it’s sorta like power, but it’s actually the refusal of it…”

“Emily…” He’s glaring at her now and she nods once before she bites her lip in a way that makes him want to mimic it.

“Your hands stay where they are. We’re on the honor system here for a moment, okay?”

He nods and watches as she stands up and places a leg on either side of his. She leans in, unclasps his belt and lowers the zipper, and then he raises his hips to help her when she drags his pants down along his legs. He hisses through his teeth as she frees him, the sharpness of her nails leaving a trail on his thighs and calves as she moves. The coolness of the room hits him suddenly and he realizes how hot his skin feels because of what they’ve been doing. He needs to get that connection back; he’ll ask for it if she won’t.

“Will you touch me?” 

She smiles as if she’s been waiting for him to ask and that feels absolutely fantastic to him. He expects her to do more of her teasing touches but instead she straddles herself across his waist and leans partially into his chest as she stretches up to reclaim the tie behind his head. He almost loses it right then and there from the overload of heat and skin and the knowledge that she’s giving him more than what he asked for. His body starts to shake and he presses into her where he’s trapped between her and his thigh.

“Still feeling weak?”

“More than ever.” He sits forward as far as he can, his arms pulling against the tie until he can feel an ache in them, and buries his face in her neck as he bites down in response. She twitches but he holds her still as he turns it into a lingering kiss there. His hips push up into her and she presses back. It’s all he can do: tell her with his lips and his hips and his skin that he wants her. It’s remarkable how much he takes his hands for granted.

“Let. Me. Touch. You.” He grits out against her throat.

“Is this how you imagined it? When you _weren’t_ supposed to be imagining it?” She sounds breathless and has started rubbing against him softly.

“It was never like this.” He bites down on her throat again and is rewarded with a moan and her grinding into his pelvis. He’s starting to feel powerful again. “It was always gentle, never like this urgent need to break myself in order to get to you.”

She cries out a little against him and he wonders if this is the hotel scene all over again - for an instant he considers pulling back. And then he feels her free hand work between them and take hold of him forcefully. Then it’s his turn to cry out. Her hand is moving against them making the whole action hotter and tighter and more awkward than he anticipates, but he just breathes through it roughly and watches her face as she concentrates on what she’s doing. He wants to say something, to push her on, but his mind has narrowed to the feel of her chafing him while he’s helpless to do much but experience it. Her rhythm halts and then she unceremoniously raises herself up and slides down onto him as he bites his lip so hard that he ends up tasting blood. She sinks deep into his pelvis and just holds there until he starts shaking. He’s waiting for her to move, but he’s amped up enough that when she does it might be all over for him. Feeling as unpredictable as a teenager wasn’t something that he imagined she’d bring out in him. It’s both embarrassing and impressive. She rotates a little in his lap but doesn’t do anything else.

“Mmmmm…”

“Don’t do that.” He croaks.

“Why?”

“Because I’m about one moan away from disappointing you.” He lays his head back against the sofa cushions. “Especially when you do it like that.”

She stretches out a little and he whimpers, but then he feels her breath along his neck. “It’s the tie - it’s heightened your vulnerability which in turn has heightened your arousal. Told ya so.”

“So… was that your plan all along?” He gasps as she trails her lips up the underside of his bound arms. “Tie me up and humiliate me? How garden-variety dominant of you…”

“Nope, that wasn’t my plan. Want some of your power back?”

“Yes, please.”

She straightens and pulls his bound hands forward to loop them around the back of her neck.

“Hands in front, but they stay tied.”

She slips her tongue into his mouth as she braces herself with her hands on his chest. His fingers weave into her hair and pull her closer. She’s right: he’s suddenly flooded with his ability to control her body once again. The re-gifting of his power gives it a fresh taste and he’s so carried away by it that he doesn’t really care that his hands are still bound. She starts moving slowly and every time she pulls away from him it is slow motion agony until she brings herself back. He tries to be patient, telling his hands to keep her steady and his lips to keep her focused. He groans a little and it does something to her: she picks up her pace and she pulls away from the kiss, leaning her forehead against his instead as another anchor point. Her eyelids droop, her breathing stutters, he catches her lips randomly as she moves with him.

“Losing some control?” He smiles between kisses.

“God, yes…” 

“Good.” 

He draws out the word as he leans into her so that he can slip his arms over her shoulders and let them fall along her torso. He feels his bound palms press into the small of her back and after a beat, he uses them to press her into his chest. She’s still moving over him, controlling their rhythm, but he’s forced another source of contact as he tries to make her lose more control. Her breasts brush against his chest as she moves - softly, just a suggestion of how he wants to feel her against him - and he smiles into her mouth at the sweet tease of it. Her hands slide down his chest between them and smooth across his raised scars, then without hesitation, they wrap around his back and pull him into her so that now her abdomen brushes against them in time with her breasts. 

_God, she’s good at this… she’s got the upper hand again…_

He can’t stop himself from groaning at this new friction and he arches into it greedily as she gasps against his cheek.

“I didn’t know if you’d like that.” Her whisper sounds delighted and he captures her mouth roughly and yanks her further forward so that their rubbing becomes heated and violent.

“Fuck…” It escapes him before he can stop it and he feels his face flush in embarrassment - this isn’t his suavest moment. He pulls away from her mouth and dips into her neck and bites down again, hard. She yelps and he eases the sting away with his tongue on her pulse point. Her sigh brushes past his ear and sounds more contented than he could possibly imagine and he decides that he’s projecting his own feelings at that moment. His hips have begun to move on their own, adding their force to the rhythm that she’s established. His arms crank around her until she’s pulled almost painfully against him.

“I’ll tell you if you’re doing something I don’t like.” It comes out harsh and angry because he’s way out of control now, but she just laughs lightly and tells him to quit playing around.

His hands grab her, spreading her as wide as he can while still being tied together, and then he rams up into her, once, and again, and again. The sofa makes a creaking noise as he pushes back with his neck for leverage on every upward thrust. Her body is being uncooperative, trying to drive down into him and messing up their rhythm. He calls out her name and it catches her attention. She scrapes his scalp with her nails and pulls his mouth to hers brutally. The act changes their angle and she decides to swivel her hips into his thrusts instead of sabotaging the movement outright. He’s now pounding up furiously, streaks of energy rolling along his thighs making them hot and achy from effort. The sofa frame is now making an undeniable cracking noise and he’s so tight everywhere that he just wants to shout indiscriminately. There’s a smash and then he feels something wet splash up his bare foot.

“The beer…” She’s breathless and out of control but she laughs for a moment. It’s glorious. He wants her whole body to feel as good as that laugh sounds. He grabs hold of her so tightly that she yelps and then he slams into her. She moans loudly and starts doing some sort of snake-like roll with her hips.

“Just like that…”

He repeats it over and over with as much power as his burning muscles can manage until her moaning becomes shouting and her nails dig into the back of his skull as she curls around him in the tightest coil he can possibly imagine. She cries out his name and thrashes against his chest just as his thighs give him their last, best effort. He arches up and pulls her, pulsing and rolling, into his hips and lets go. He buries his face into the hair falling across her shoulder, and his hands crawl up her back to bind her to him. Their hips sway in dying circles until there’s nothing left but the uneven sound of their breath and the rain ticking against the long windows. 

His hands are still digging into her and he consciously tells himself to LET GO. His fingers cramp as they finally get the message and he tries to soothe away what he knows will eventually turn into bruises on her. His wrists hurt where the tied shirt has bitten into them. He’ll have to be careful about the length of his shirt cuffs tomorrow…

“Emily?” She’s gone very still all of a sudden but she’s holding him too close to see her face.

“Yeah?”

He thinks for a moment. “Sorry about the beer…”

Her whole body softens into him as she laughs: free and open and blissful. He smiles and sighs into her hair before she pulls away and fixes him with a sparkling look.

“Don’t fucking apologize.”

“Just for the beer.” He grins and leans in to brush the edge of her smile with his lips. “Everything else I’ll gladly own up to.”

He feels her smile back as she catches his lips and lingers against them. When she pulls away, they’re both a little breathless and giddy, and he realizes that he hasn’t experienced this sensation in _years_. 

“Thank you.” He whispers into her neck before he can stop himself. She tenses a little and he knows that she’s gearing up a sarcastic response so he decides to exert what little hard won authority he still possesses. “Just accept it, okay? I really needed this, and I’m grateful. There’s nothing wrong with that.”

She pulls away far enough to see him properly and there isn’t a trace of mockery on her face. “You’re right. And I needed it too.”

He loops his tied hands back over her head and lets them rest between their chests. Wordlessly, she unbinds him and when the shirt falls, one of his hands drifts up to her face and draws her hair away so that he can see her clearly. She leans into the fingers that just barely hold her hair back and closes her eyes. He doesn’t know if it’s the case or the sex or the tiny moment that just passed between them, but her mask slips and he finds himself face to face with Plain Emily. He doesn’t know if he’s ever had to categorize the feeling he experiences in that instant - maybe a word for it has yet to be created - but he’s sure that he wants more of it, more of her. When she opens her eyes a second later, that nameless emotion must be branded on him because her own expression becomes indescribable in response as she leans in for one last kiss.

~~~~

They are all in the conference room the next day reviewing open cases and deciding which to prioritize and which to send to the cold case graveyard. Everyone looks a little worse for wear, but they all agree: Reid looks like Typhoid Mary. 

“Kid, you look awful.” Morgan’s eyebrows do their squiggle of concern.

Reid lets out an explosive sneeze and everyone wheels their chairs away from him a little. Except Prentiss - she produces a package of tissues from somewhere and hands them to him. He smiles shyly and nods.

“Did you get any sleep last night?” She asks.

“A little. The storm kept me up too. It was a lousy night all ‘round.” He sighs and then blows his nose loudly. “How was your night?”

Prentiss squeezes Reid’s hand and picks a new file folder from the stack in front of her. She starts making her own notations as she responds.

“My night wasn’t lousy.”

Hotch doesn’t look up from his folders but instead continues scribbling determinedly.


	20. Chapter 20

He gets out of the pokey motel room shower scrubbing his hair with a too-thin towel and sees Prentiss spread out along the length of the bed newly embroiled in the case file. He gets instantly flushed, like a damned teenager, as he watches her calves cross unconsciously. Her body has become one sinuous pale curve against the crappy motel sheets lying there naked and flipping through horrendous crime scene reports.

“Hey, I had a thought…” She murmurs without looking up from the file folder. He’s having a thought too but he’s pretty sure that it isn’t the same one. “What if he’s lonely?”

“I’m sorry?”

“The UnSub. We’ve been working under the assumption that what he does to his victims is some form of sexual sadism, but in the last three cases, all of the torture is post-mortem. What if it isn’t torture? What if he’s… I dunno… preserving them, you know, _chemically_ , because he wants more time with them after they’re dead?”

“Necrophilia.” He hates himself a little that they’re discussing this and he’s getting aroused. Listening to her mind tick over things while she is oblivious to how she’s affecting him makes him short circuit a little. “We discussed that when we considered the embalming, but we dismissed it because the earlier cases didn’t display that aspect.”

“I’m not saying that he’s a necrophiliac, but it _is_ a lot easier to control a dead victim than a live one. They won’t fight back… won’t ruin the illusion of intimacy… there’s no rejection…”

She flips a page of the report and shifts herself so that her hair slides across her shoulder and down along her back. It is longer than he has ever seen it before and the strands fall into the valley between her shoulder blades leading his gaze along her spine until it’s lost under the sheet that lays half draped across her ass. He throbs all over once, hard, and closes his eyes as the towel drops to the floor and he moves blindly towards the bed. She doesn’t startle as the bed sinks under his weight or when his arms appear on either side of her as he floats above the length of her.

“So, you think it’s less about them being dead than it is about having a partner that won’t leave.” He gives himself points for sounding professional.

“Yeah.” She’s still lost in her own theory. “I think that he wants _a relationship_ and sorta stumbled across the embalming thing. But no matter how efficient he is with that, they’ll eventually deteriorate and it ruins his fantasy. That’s when he disposes of them and has to find a new victim. I think that he’s… terribly lonely.”

He stops short then. She sounds almost sorry for the UnSub and, though she has great empathy for victims, she’s always more than a little disdainful of killers. He considers what might have led her to this case insight and the memory of the look on her face the day he was shot comes back to him. Her terror had struck him so completely, shocked him into thinking that his private impulses hadn’t been so well hidden. But what if his mask had been successful? What if she had arrived at that moment independently, driven by the same fears that drove him: apathy, failure, isolation? 

“Are you just going to hover there, or are you going to fuck me?” She quietly flips another page of the report.

A smile curls his lips as he lowers himself, slowing dragging his cock along her lower back and pulling the sheet away. “Tell me more about his loneliness. How is this a valuable insight for the profile?”

She makes a hum of appreciation as his hips slip down behind the curve of her bum. “Lonely isn’t the only thing he is - he’s also clearly a psychopath - but he lacks the skills to establish a real relationship, even if he had to fake certain behaviors in order to achieve it.”

She moans a little as his hand brushes the inside of her thighs; she is wet and it forces her name out of him instinctively. Lately, everything he feels about her seems based on instinct. He shudders to imagine what instincts might take over if she were just suddenly gone. In that moment, he thinks that he too might not be so far from empathy with their killer either. 

“That’s atypical.” He groans, sliding into her as she pushes back against him. “A timid psychopath…”

She sucks in a breath through her teeth and then her head sinks between her shoulders when he moves in her. One hand curls a page of the report and soon all that can be heard is their breathing and the crinkle of paper as she crushes the page.

“He’s not… just one thing…” She arches her back on a down stroke making them both cry out a little. “He understands what he’s doing is wrong… but his need to connect… it’s so powerful…”

“I-it trumps his moral compass…” He stutters, looping an arm around her waist and pulling her against him. His feet slip off the edge of the bed trying to get a grip; she stretches out under him sending the pages of the folder to the floor with a sound like waves crashing.

“Aaron…” She gasps when the bed starts thumping against the nightstands on either side. She presses her face into the tangled sheets as her nails rake the thin cotton. “Aaron… oh god…”

“Have y-you… ever been t-that lonely?” He gulps against the skin of her neck. He tastes the sting of her perfume and the artificial flowers from her shampoo and the salt from her body that makes him ravenous. She mewls into the sheets and curves back into his hips.

“I-I have… almost.” He confesses and feels her tighten unbelievably under him. “Until you.”

She cries out as she bucks and he just shuts down and holds on. Even with her mouth pressed into the mattress, the sound that her voice lends to his name is raw and frantic. He yanks her back against him violently, both angry and relieved by what has passed between them, and then he lets go. He sinks into her and she flows around him as if he could fall forever and she’d never tell him that he’s gone too far. 

He wonders if this is okay, if there are limits to her reasonableness when it comes to him. She always speaks her mind when something bothers her, but they never speak about this _need_ between them. He hopes that is because she understands and reciprocates, not that it simply isn’t important enough to mention. He groans and tries shifting, realizing that he’s a lot of dead weight, but she stops him with an incomprehensible mumble and the grasp of her hand. When she clutches him, the ruined file page floats out of her grip and joins its partners on the floor next to the bed.

~~~

In the morning when the team explains their revised profile, Hotch works very hard to avoid looking at Prentiss. No matter how professional she is, all he sees is the woman who brought him to pieces just by talking about loneliness.


	21. Chapter 21

She gives him a look of undisguised irritation made uglier by the severe lighting in the interrogation room. He’s building up a head of righteous indignation when he feels the sharp stab of a heel lance into his ankle under the table. He stifles the yelp and rolls it into a thunderous scowl instead, and then stands up too fast making his metal chair scrape and fall over behind him. He leans forward and shoves a finger right in Prentiss’s face.

“We aren’t done here.”

“You are.” Her eyes are calm and cool. “Get the hell out of my interrogation. _Sir_.”

He turns quickly and bursts through the door slamming it so hard that the cops down the hall sit up at their desks and peer at him. He gives them nothing as he turns and walks into the adjoining observation suite. Reid looks at him wide-eyed in the relative darkness with his arms crossed. He takes a moment to synthesize the observable data, and Hotch lets him.

“How’s the ankle?”

“Fine.” Hotch tries not to give anything away. “You might want to go get Rossi. I don’t think that this is going to take much longer.”

Reid turns back to the one-way glass and smirks a little. He nods appreciatively. “You’re probably right. Though she didn’t have to kick you in the shin.”

“You can’t tell Prentiss how to do anything. You know that.”

Reid chuckles and heads for the door. “You two are the best ‘good cop, bad cop’ team I’ve ever witnessed. You should teach a course.”

Hotch allows himself a small smile at that, and waits until Prentiss has completely dismantled the murderer’s ego in the next room. It takes her just twenty minutes.

Rossi takes over as the suspect writes out a formal statement and Hotch holds his breath from when the interrogation room door shuts to when the observation one opens. It closes with a click and she comes to stand quietly beside him, watching the suspect silently struggle with a ballpoint pen through the one-way glass. Her hand falls to her side and he feels the edge of her pinky finger brush his lightly, hypnotically.

“Sorry about the foot.” She murmurs.

He strokes her finger back in the darkness. “Did you think that I wouldn’t sell it?”

“No, I knew you would. But sometimes I miss the fact that I used to irritate you so much.”

He turns to face her and waits until she looks back at him. “You’re contemptible.”

“Thanks.” She leans forward and kisses the smile at the corner of his mouth with one of her own, before turning and leaving him alone in the dark.


	22. Chapter 22

“One of yours got hit.”

That’s what the local sheriff says when he arrives on the scene and his abdomen starts to ache and twist along the lines of his poorly healed scars. Morgan, Reid, and Prentiss had been sent to this location and he can’t choose which one he would sacrifice for the others. He needs them all. _Needs_ them…

He rounds the back of an ambulance and sees what he doesn’t want to: Prentiss is in the back of the rig, lying on a gurney as an EMT cuts away her bloodied shirt. He vaults himself into the van and silences the other EMT’s protests with a murderous look and a pointed finger. Prentiss raises her head with a look of panic until she recognizes him against the midday glare and lets her head fall back with a sigh.

“Tell me.” He commands the EMT with the scissors.

“It’s okay.” Prentiss explains to the paramedic. “He’s in charge.”

“A single bullet wound to the left shoulder. A through-and-through… missed everything major. She’ll be fine but we still have to take her to the hospital. Sir.”

The paramedic looks like he’s about to piss himself but Hotch can’t change the look on his face even if he had a less menacing option available. He looks back to Prentiss and she just rolls her eyes as if he’s a personal embarrassment rather than her boss, and sighs.

“Could you give us a few minutes?” She suggests and the EMTs leave almost before she finishes the question. “Don’t look at me like that.”

“Like what?”

“As if you’re disappointed. I didn’t plan on ruining your day, Hotch…”

“Ruining my day?!” Now he focuses his murderous look on her. “I’m not disappointed, Emily. What you are observing is terror.”

“Oh.” She blinks a few times as if she’s caught flat-footed.

“What happened?” He stumbles forward and then sinks onto the bench that the EMT had been using. He reaches for her and strokes her hair from her face before he can tell himself ‘no’. Her eyes widen a little and she quickly looks out of the bus to see if anyone is watching.

“Aaron…”

“I should have been here.”

“Aaron, stop it. Remember who we are.”

Her tone makes him snap his hand back. Before he entered this ambulance he was pretty sure of who ‘they’ were, but now her statement has thrown that all into doubt. He never knew that a single sentence could cause physical pain.

“I’ll be fine.” She continues quietly. “The suspect had a friend with him when we arrived and they were both armed. Morgan and Reid got pinned down in a bad position and drawing fire away from them was the only option. Trust me, I’ve already been through the guilt gauntlet with both of them so I could really do without a third trip with you.”

“As you wish.” He stands and it seems miraculous because he suddenly can’t feel his limbs at all. “Get checked out and keep me informed. Text me, if it’s more convenient for you.”

He watches her wince but isn’t certain if it’s because of his words or her shoulder. He hopes that he hurt her just a little. “We’ll wrap up things here and confer with the Maryland D.A. about charges. You’re on medical leave as of now until you’re cleared for duty by the doctors at Quantico.”

“Hotch, I-” Only now is she starting to look worried.

“File your report when you are able, Agent. Just concentrate on getting back on your feet.”

“Jesus, _Aaron_ …” She huffs and tries to raise herself from the gurney but he ignores the voice that says ‘listen to her’ and hops out of the rig and back into the Maryland sunshine. He has a case to tie up and agents who need assignments and she is absolutely correct that they need to keep their perspective instead of giving into the panic of losing yet _another_ person.

He has to remember who they are.

~~~

She returns to duty five days later. It seems too quick but the Quantico doctors sign off on it and he doesn’t have an administrative reason to keep her desk bound. He hasn’t spoken to her outside of the framework of the Unit and she has retreated into her old behavior: she follows his instructions, she takes digs at him when she can, and mostly remains distant. Just like old times. He watches her laugh with Reid at her desk and wonders if what happened between them is just _over_ without either of them mentioning it.


	23. Chapter 23

Prentiss loses her cool during an interrogation and freezes up during a standoff on the same case. He’s been watching her closely since she was shot - perhaps more closely than is professionally necessary - and finds himself stunned by these missteps. For the first time since he’s known her, he doesn’t trust her instincts. As her boss, he can’t ignore it, even though the quiet fear of what it might mean makes him want to fervently deny it. He’d rather pull out his teeth than have this conversation, but he slides into the jet seat opposite her and tells himself that he wouldn’t have hesitated discussing it _before_ , so he should show her the same courtesy now.

“We need to talk.” He says quietly as she just watches him settle into the chair.

“Now?”

“It’s best to do it while it’s still fresh.”

She gives him an incredulous frown that he feels he doesn’t deserve but he presses on.

“Your actions during this case…” He begins and suddenly her expression goes blank before she quickly covers it with a professional blandness. She clearly thought that he meant something else. “Are worrisome.”

“I…” Her eyes look away and she clears her throat. “I wasn’t professional.”

She seems unwilling to elaborate so he leans forward bracing his elbows against his knees and just focuses on her face. “It’s okay if you need more time, Prentiss. You came back after the shooting very quickly…”

Her gaze snaps to his and her look of incredulity is back. “It’s not that.”

“I’m not so sure. You’ve always been able to shake these incidents off, but I think this one has lingered. I told you once that there would come a time when this work would catch up with you.”

“I remember that conversation very well, Hotch.”

She stares him down and he’s not sure where her defiance stems from. He’s hurting and defeated, but that’s personal. What he’s talking about here is his professional faith in her. He’s talking about what the team needs. Perhaps he hasn’t made that clear enough…

“I need to know that you can continue to do your job.”

She takes a moment before she answers him. “And I need to know that it’s okay for me to feel _human_ about the things that happen to me.”

“Of course it’s okay.” He says softly. He literally has to clasp his hands together so that he won’t reach out for her. “Just so long as those human moments don’t compromise your performance. We all bleed off the emotions and self-doubts during our downtime - that’s what we’re here for. If you’re no longer… finding that support outside of work… then maybe it’s time to investigate other avenues to deal with this anxiety.”

He can barely get the sentence out because the idea of her taking these moments to someone other than him makes him want to maim something. He thought that he’d finally found the element that had been missing from him for so long, but her dismissal in Maryland reminded him that they had never discussed anything about their relationship. Other than a half-realized fear of lowering their defenses, their liminal moments of connection have all been internal. Expression is his primary failing; he has a deep, still well of feeling for her but has never said any of it aloud. Looking back on that impulse now, he thinks that it might have been wise. Maybe he read too much into her… Maybe it was too soon after Haley’s death. He was a drowning man and she looked like a life preserver but that was unfair and presumptuous of him.

He shakes his head ever so slightly to clear these thoughts. He’s having this conversation because she’s vital to the team and he depends on her pragmatism. As a leader, her condition worries him and the welfare of his gang of runts is his primary responsibility. He wants to help her get back on track, that’s all, he tells himself. Her eyes narrow as she watches him straighten his shoulders and wait for her response.

“You’ve sure got this indefatigable leader persona buttoned up, haven’t you?” 

She whispers it disdainfully and he sits back into his chair with a sigh. She’s in full rebellion mode and he knows that he can’t reach her. He decides to give her the weekend to work through her anger, and if she comes in on Monday without acknowledging her issue, he’ll pull her from the team and set her off on her own. Perhaps that’s what she’s always wanted, but he can’t help but give her one last chance to reach back and finally let him in.


	24. Chapter 24

It’s after midnight on Sunday when his doorbell rings and his heart rams into his throat as he goes to answer it because who would have the audacity to show up unannounced this late other than her? He swings the door wide and she’s standing there looking rumpled and sheepish. 

“What is it?” His pride tries to make him look tough even though he’s nothing but soft all over as he stares at her on his stoop.

“Umm, listen.” She shuffles her feet in a very Reid-like way. For a moment he wonders if Reid has picked up any of her habits. “I know it’s late and that you have Jack, and I don’t really want to disturb you…”

There’s a long gap of silence and in the end he determines that she’s not going to fill it, so he does. “But?”

“But… you’re right: I _am_ having trouble and you’re the only person that I can think to come to with it but I’ve really screwed things up here and now I don’t know what to do.”

She’s staring at her shoes and he sighs expansively. She seems to cringe a little at the sound.

“Come in.” He says quietly and her eyes snap to his as if he’s just unexpectedly pardoned her life sentence.

“I didn’t mean to do this. I swear.” Her voice cracks and he doesn’t think that they are really talking about her shooting. He shuts and locks the door and then turns to face her in his dim hallway.

“Tell me what you came here to say. All of it. Don’t stop to consider my reaction first.”

She bites her lip - it’s something he’s never seen her do before. He’s overcome by the thought that there’s so much about her that he really doesn’t know.

“The shooting got to me, but not in the way you think.”

He leans back against the wall and crosses his arms, hoping that it looks casual enough to encourage her to continue.

“I screwed up on this last case because I can feel you watching me all the time.”

“I’m always watching you - all of you. It’s part of my job.”

“Yeah, I know, but this is different. I can _feel_ the hurt I’ve caused when you look at me.”

He goes still all over.

“Relax, Aaron. It’s probably only evident to me.” She sighs and looks at her feet again. “I’m really sorry. This was something that I never intended… I’ve never been very good at this.”

“Hold on.” He clears his throat and tries to be professional. “I think that you’ve skipped over something here so there are big holes in this conversation for me. Explain the shooting.”

She nods, happy to have a framework to operate in. “It was what it was. I was hurt and scared and relieved, and I was worried about what the fallout would be - just like on any other case. Then you stormed into the ambulance and I was prepared to deal with SSA Hotchner - to justify my actions to you, to get some stern comments about unnecessary risk or the value of back-up. I needed to hear that, I needed a little bit of that friction to get me back to myself again. But what I got was Aaron instead.”

She looks up at him and her expression is so earnest that it leaves him breathless.

“You were terrified and I didn’t expect that - maybe I should’ve, but I didn’t. I know that you’re… invested in us, but I didn’t know how much until that moment. It should’ve been great, it should’ve been this revelatory instant, but all it did was make me feel lost and petrified because it _wasn’t what I needed_. And because I’m an emotional toddler, I struck out instinctively hoping to snap you back into the battle that I needed from you. I was only thinking of the moment, and how I needed to stop my psyche from crumbling… I didn’t even consider how much it would hurt you.”

And that admission in itself is enough to make him feel as if she’s slapped him with her words all over again. She’s just being honest, but he has to stifle a wince nonetheless. All of those years that Haley complained he never gave her anything emotionally, and now here he was _giving_ to a woman who didn’t want it.

“You could’ve just said something.” He grits out.

“I just expected you to know, somehow. It’s not fair…”

“No, it’s not. Especially considering how you reacted when I was shot.”

“Aaron,” She takes a step towards him and stops. “There are… reasons for why I am the way I am. I did things… long before I came to the Unit, and the consequences of those things follow me around. I don’t really want to tell you my sad-ass story other than to explain that there is _a justification_ for my uncooperative b.s. and it has nothing to do with you. I know that there was a moment back in that ambulance when I could’ve straightened all of this out - when I could’ve fixed it - but I didn’t. I let the moment sail past me and I let you stay hurt even though I didn’t want to do that. Christ! I wasn’t even brave enough to let you know that it felt _good_ to know that you worried for me!”

Hotch snorts to cover the hollowness he feels at the center of his chest. 

“And then you went all calm and professional on me, and it made me even angrier at you that you wouldn’t fight back. I screwed up with the one person that I couldn’t afford to lose, and I didn’t even get what I wanted out of it.”

“I’m sorry I disappointed you.” He feels the lines of his scowl settle across his face as he stares her down.

“Hotch, get angry with me! I deserve it!”

“Keep your voice down, please.”

“Sorry… I’m sorry…” She whispers.

He sighs because he can’t maintain this level of umbrage forever. And they have things to sort out. “So, you’re saying that your level of distraction has been caused by our interaction in Maryland, and not post traumatic stress from the shooting. Is that right?”

“Yes.”

“Is that the whole truth?”

She looks him straight in the eye when she answers. “Yes.”

“Is this… airing of motivations going to be enough to ensure that you can do your job effectively? Be honest, please.”

“I haven’t been allowed to depend on people much - not until I came to the FBI. I’m still rebuilding that impulse.” Prentiss reaches out and grabs his wrist. “I need you, Aaron. I need your grudging faith in me to back you up, even if you have nothing to base that faith on. I need your belief in me as a dependable partner, because that belief makes me more human - it makes me think that I can do anything. I know that it’s asking a lot, all recent actions considered, and I know that you’ll have to fight how I’ve personally insulted you. But I need you to believe in me as my boss. That’s what I came here to ask for.”

“If I promise that I can deliver that, will you be okay?” He hates the way his voice softens when he asks this.

“Yes,” Her grip tightens on his wrist. “I will. I give you my word.”

“Okay.” He nods and lets his arm fall hoping that it will break their connection. “I wasn’t looking forward to pulling you off the team. Reid would’ve fought it… demanded an explanation…”

“Yeah.” She sags and lets a smirk curl the side of her mouth. “He’s pretty demanding for an introvert…”

“I need you too, you know.” He says after a long moment stretches between them. “Your dependability, your practicality… it’s the glue that binds the team together. They work better because they know you’re there for them. It makes my job easier - you give them what I can’t. That’s part of the reason why I was so upset in Maryland.”

“Part of the reason?”

“Yes. Just a part.” He’s not going to elaborate. Either she understands or she doesn’t.

“Aaron…”

“We don’t need to discuss it if it’s over.”

“Are you saying it’s not?” She looks completely surprised.

“That depends on you.”

“I… I don’t know what to say…”

“Well then, wait until you do, and then say it.” He says it softly to dull the sarcasm a little and then realizes that he’s dead tired. He looks at his watch: he’ll have to be up in five hours to deal with Jack.

“Ummm, can I ask a favor?”

He looks up and sees that she’s exhausted too.

“This is a little awkward, but… can I crash on your couch tonight? I’ll be gone before Jack gets up, I promise. I honestly feel a little too fried to drive all the way back to my place.”

He walks away without answering and down to a closet in the hall. By the time he returns, she’s got the front door open and is looking confused at what he’s offering her.

“Take a shower first. You’ll feel better. The bathroom’s down the hall and to the left.”

“Really, I don’t nee-”

“Stop arguing and go.” He says as he gently nudges her with a towel.

She smiles and disappears down the hall as he checks the security system, and wanders around the condo turning off lights and electronics. Eventually he hears the shower shut off and waits for her to pad down the hallway. The footsteps halt on the squeaky floorboard in his bedroom doorway.

“Where are my clothes?”

“Washing machine.” He turns and crooks a finger at her. “Come here.”

“Hotch…”

“Don’t ‘Hotch’ me. Come here - I’ve found some clean things for you to sleep in.”

She walks into the room wrapped in a towel and looking suspicious. The light from the bedside falls across her as she walks up to him and he sees the bullet wound on her shoulder for the first time. It’s healing, but still horribly puckered and red. Before he thinks about it, his fingers trace the outside edges of it. Prentiss goes very still under his touch.

“Is it bothering you?” He whispers.

“It aches a little. It’s healing well otherwise.”

He can’t look away from it - the angry scar tissue has him in its grip. He circles the wound once, twice, with his fingers, and then covers her shoulder with the warmth of his palm. He breathes out raggedly.

“I wish I had been there.”

“I wish you had been there too.”

She surprises him with her words and then with her look of complete honesty. He stares for a long time before he remembers himself and lifts the pile of folded clothes to her with his other hand.

“Here. Slip these on and then get in.” He nods towards the bed.

“I’m not taking your bed.”

“I’m not taking the couch.” He counters.

“Is this wise?”

“We’re both adults, Emily. I, for one, am perfectly capable of sleeping next to a beautiful woman without losing control.”

She makes a disappointed sound and takes the clothes he offers. He just smiles. The towel drops to the floor behind him and he imagines her slipping into his old Stanford t-shirt and a pair of chili pepper boxers that Jack had given him last father’s day. When he hears the sound of the freshly turned sheets rustling, he flicks off the lights and gets changed for bed. He’s breathing shallowly so that he can hear her and he knows that she’s watching him move in the dark. Eventually, he crawls into bed beside her and settles the sheets over them. He’s staring into the shadows where she’s laying and he imagines that she’s staring back.

“I’ll leave early.” She breathes.

“It’s okay.”

There’s a moment where he holds his breath and then she moves across the mattress and lays her head against his shoulder. Her hands curl between their chests and she lets out a deep sigh.

“I’ll leave early…”

“Go to sleep, Emily.”

He wraps his arms around her and they both go still.

~~~

He feels something pulling on his shirt but doesn’t really wake until something warm presses against his lips. His eyes flutter in the dark, unable to make out the shadowy blobs that he sees, but his other senses tell him _it’s her_ with enough specificity to leave no doubt. He parts his lips and she takes advantage slipping into him while using the fistfuls of shirt to pull him against her warmth. His hands slide to her waist - he’s not really thinking about it, it just happens - and he licks at her bottom lip until she gets the message and lets him kiss her as deeply as he can. Her tongue tastes like the toothpaste he buys and she smells like his soap and the t-shirt he’s put her in feels soft and familiar - and it’s all culminating into such a perfect storm of sensory possession that he’s become instantly hard and is pressing into her as if it is his undisputed right to take her. His hands race up to her shoulders and push her back with assurance even though he makes an involuntary moan as their kiss ends.

“I’m sorry, Emily.” He shuffles on the mattress until he can feel the edge along his back. He should have taken the sofa. “But… need isn’t enough. It’s got to mean something. I guess I’m just old fashioned that way.”

They’ve both been quiet for Jack’s sake, but now he can hear her breathing hard across from him. There’s a moment when that sound stops as she takes a deep breath and holds it. “Well then, kiss me again, because this really means something, Aaron.”

“Are you sure?”

“Considering how much it scares me… yeah, I’m pretty damned sure.”

He grabs her up again, his hands smoothing along her back under his shirt. It’s the last sudden move he makes as he deliberately slows down and takes his time. It _means_ something. 

He strips her bare, and lets her do the same to him, and then finds a way to touch every part of her with his fingers, his lips, his tongue… He whispers soothing sounds as she moans; he breathes ‘quiet’ across her skin as he kisses her throat, licks the swell of her breast, and bites the juncture of her thigh. When he pushes into her, he bites down on the inside of his cheek hard enough to leave a coppery aftertaste. He wants to tell her how good she feels, how much he’s missed this, but doesn’t trust that he’ll be able to keep it subdued. 

She’s biting her lips - he can see her teeth flash in the dark when she arches under him - and it makes him crazy. He rolls his hips and bows his torso as he strains into her, collecting her up against him so that she’ll have to mirror his movements. Their rhythm synchronizes and they are moving as one, getting faster and more frenetic as the bed sheets tangle in their legs. She’s trying so hard not to make a sound and he loves the level of fight that she’s putting into that - he kisses her between gasps and frantic thrusts, and groans in spite of himself at how great her skin tastes when she’s hot all over. 

The bed creaks and their breathing stutters; their bodies slip as the sheets get damp around them. He imagines that their silhouette looks monstrous in the shadows of his room, and he’s suddenly overtaken by a mindless desire to make them appear as if they’re inseparable. He wants all of her - everything that she’s willing to give here, and anything that’s left over afterwards. And with that thought he can’t stop himself. 

She moves under him and calls out his name _just_ the way he needs her to and he’s gone, crashing with her and breathing hard into the waves of her hair. He feels her clutch at him, her nails leaving crescent marks along his back, and then a slicing pain on his shoulder where she bites down to prevent from crying out. They move together until their muscles give out and their need to breathe and slow their heart rates becomes all-important. He sinks into her body and murmurs the syllables of her name as if it’s the only word he knows. She kisses the edges of that bite stinging along his shoulder and whispers ‘sorry’ even though he couldn’t give a hot damn about it right now. 

He rolls to his side carrying her with him as he folds her into his chest. He has so much bubbling in him that he wants to get out but fatigue is pulling him down faster than he can form the thoughts. He manages to blurt out ‘Don’t leave’ but everything else fades into the background as he sinks back into the warmth that she offers him.

~~~

When he wakes in the morning to get Jack ready for school, she’s gone even though he assured her that wasn’t necessary. He sighs and runs his fingers through the hair that’s probably a punk rock masterpiece after last night’s activities, and sets about retrieving lost clothes from the floor. He makes a thorough check, but he can’t find his t-shirt anywhere.


	25. Chapter 25

“Hold the elevator!”

Prentiss charges through the doors and looks surprised to find Hotch standing there obediently pressing the ‘door open’ button. Pink colours her cheeks as the doors slide shut and she makes a concerted effort to stare at the floor numbers and hide a smile from him. He does the same. They make it past the third floor before he says anything.

“Did you steal my Stanford t-shirt?”

“Yep.”

He looks over at her and she is well and truly blushing now. He turns to face her and can’t stop the ridiculous smile that breaks across his face. She steals a side glance at him and then rolls her eyes as her façade cracks and she busts out a smile of her own.

“Stop it.” She murmurs, but it’s half hearted.

“I like you in my clothes.” His grin is getting wider as her blush deepens.

“I like it too.” She is quiet and trying to straighten up her armor in the elevator door’s reflection. The cab makes a ding to announce the sixth floor and she takes a deep breath in an attempt to settle herself. “Game face, Hotchner.”

The doors slide open and she gives him a quick wink before walking out towards the bullpen leaving him amused and fumbling to get his own professional mask in place.


	26. Chapter 26

_\-- Where is Jack’s game taking place? --_

Hotch is staring at the message while sitting in the bleachers and trying to recall if he told her about Jack’s game in the first place. He wants to ask her why she wants to know, but finds himself texting the address instead. Twenty minutes later he sees her walking the perimeter of the field in worn jeans and a faded Misfits t-shirt, half of her focus on finding him and the other half on the confused flurry of six year olds chasing the soccer ball. She climbs the bleachers and sits next to him with an amused smile, leaving just enough room between them to make their connection to an outsider appear ambiguous.

“Who’s winning?” She breezes.

“They don’t keep score in this league. It’s just for the experience of teamwork.” He smiles a little and wants to find out if her jeans feel as soft as they look.

“Not very realistic.”

“They’re six.” He intones warmly and she shrugs as she agrees. “Did I tell you about this game?”

“Jack did when I was over last week.” Her back straightens as she finds Jack in the gaggle of kids on the field and focuses her concentration. It almost makes his heart burst to see it.

“He asked you to come?”

“Yep.”

“And you came.” He breathes.

She looks away from the field long enough to shoot him a serious glare. “Of course I did. I gotta have the little man’s back, right? This is a big deal. Even if they don’t keep score.”

He wants to pull her in and lose himself in her warmth. He wants to feel her arms around him and hear her laugh at his obvious sentimentality. He’s aching to whisper that this is all wonderfully new and frightening for him because he’s forty-six years old and feels as though he’s doing this for the first time in his life. He wants to thank her for giving him a chance to feel like a fool. She smiles at him and then her gaze flicks to something over his shoulder and it fades a little.

“Someone’s watching you.”

He looks down at the field and sees who has caught her attention. He raises a hand in greeting and then turns back to Prentiss.

“That’s Jack’s coach, Miriam. She’s got a six year old of her own out in that scrum.”

“Lemme guess: she’s single.”

“Divorced. Why?”

Prentiss rolls her eyes at him.

“What?” He gets defensive. “It’s not like that. She wants me to be the team’s assistant coach. She’s been very persistent and I suppose she could use the help…”

“Of course she’s persistent. Handsome, capable, successful widower? You’re probably driving these single moms into a sublimated frenzy of longing.” She smirks and then looks away to the game again as if she is just pointing out a friendly insight.

His heart thuds strangely for an instant and then eases back into its normal rhythm as he watches her eyes follow the action on the field. She leans forward, elbows on her knees and lips parted, seemingly distracted entirely by the game. She couldn’t possibly be that interested. Was she trying to cover up some insecurity before he read it? His heart thuds painfully again but this time it makes him smile and reach for her hand.

“Suburban assignations aren’t for me.” He murmurs and she turns to face him, colour creeping into her cheeks. “I need someone who will battle me, and then back me up when the fight gets beyond me. I tried unqualified adoration once and it didn’t work.” He rubs his thumb across her knuckles and then leans in to brush a kiss against her ear. “Now I want a partner.”

She pulls back and watches his face closely, a faint smile playing with the edges of her mouth. He’s aching to kiss it, to find out what that expression tastes like. She looks over his shoulder again, and then back to him with a mischievous glint.

“That’s not gonna do it, I’m afraid…”

She pulls his face to hers and kisses him as if the act is actually the most intense conversation she’s ever had. He stiffens a little, worried by the impropriety of it and wondering what Jack will think if he sees it, but she wins him over just like she always does. Soon they’re pressed against each other and his hand cups her face as they separate to catch their breath. 

“Is she still watching?” He smiles. 

Prentiss shakes her head. “I think she got the message.”

“The message wasn’t meant for her.”

She bends her face into his hand to try and cover the fact that she’s blushing. Her skin feels on fire under his fingertips. Pulling his hand away, she kisses it quickly before clasping it in her own and letting them dangle from her knee. 

“Now you can do the assistant coach thing without worrying about romantic subtext.”

His eyebrows rise. “What makes you think I have time to do it?”

“It’s just an _assistant_ coaching gig, Aaron. I’m sure that they could handle a few practices without you if you were called away on a case. And it would be good for you and Jack. Something normal, ya know? Something you two could share together. It seems pretty low key.”

He smiles and nods, looking at their clasped hands balanced on her knee. “They don’t keep score.”

“Right.” She is grinning at him. He can _feel_ it.

“Is that why you kissed me? Some mercenary ploy to get me embroiled in the drama of a weekend pee-wee soccer team?”

“I kissed you because I wanted to, just like always. The mercenary ploy was just a happy side effect.”

He squeezes her hand and then follows her eyes back to the field to watch his son play. He can’t remember a more satisfying Saturday; Jack scores a goal that no one counts, and he holds Prentiss’s hand while they spend an hour talking about nothing important at all.


	27. Chapter 27

He can barely breathe.

Ever since he heard Morgan’s shout for an EMS unit across the comm. And now all he can focus on is Morgan’s bloody shirt as he sits with the rest of the team in the waiting room.

Why hadn’t it been him? Why hadn’t she come to him in the first place? Had she been afraid of his reaction to the details about Doyle? She _had_ to know him better than that by now. She had to.

He’s staring a hole into Morgan’s abdomen and an anger that he hasn’t experienced since killing Foyet is making his skin hot and tight all over. He feels sick and terrified and murderous all at once, and he thinks that if he doesn’t move, he’ll snap and kill someone in this room. He stalks over to the nursing station and barks at a woman who loses her professional composure just by looking at him, and then he walks back and shoves a generic teal shirt at Morgan.

“Please take that off.” His request isn’t polite and the look Morgan gives him confirms that his expression works on more than just the nursing staff.

Everyone is staring; it is unusual to see him this far out on a limb. He needs to remember his place.

_My place is next to her. We’re supposed to have one another’s back._

J.J. appears and gives him a meaningful nod. “I need you for a moment.”

She takes him to a room just beyond the surgical suites and tells him the god-awful plan: Prentiss will live, but she also has to die. J.J. is so detached, so unquestioning about something so patently stupid that he wonders if she’s had a minor lobotomy in order to do her job at State. 

“This is so asinine that it could only be the product of a multiple bureaucracy groupthink. She’s not going to do it.” He lets J.J. have both barrels but she’s stronger than the rest of them - always has been when it comes to his authority - and she just responds with her ‘oh, really’ stare.

“It’s not your call anymore, Hotch. Technically, Prentiss is an Interpol agent - she always has been. It’s their initiative and State has signed off on it. And, not for nothing, but she has as well.”

This floors him because she is so much smarter than this and she would be the first to point out the tactical flaws in this plan. A second after that he considers that Prentiss’s status as an Interpol agent for the past six years explains why she never gave him the same deference as the others. Perhaps he never really accounted for much at all.

“She can un-sign off on it.” He stalks past J.J., who knows well enough to let him go, and goes to question the source.

He upsets a handful of masked and scrubbed nurses as he barges into several post-op rooms until he finds the right one. She looks awful: bruised, cut, wan and exhausted, all bound up in surgical bandages, IV tubes and monitoring wires. She turns to look at him and goes even paler. Her gown slips a little and there’s an angry welt on her chest… _Jesus, is that a brand?... He branded her?_

“You can’t do this.” He growls without preamble. “It’s so utterly stupid that I don’t know where to begin the criticism.”

“It has to be done and I can do it, so I will. It’s as simple as that.” Her voice is scratchy, as if she’s been crying and managed to drain all but necessary emotions out of her.

“It’s not ‘simple’ at all, Emily. You’ll be working alone, without resources or back-up - it’s basically suicide.” His voices breaks and it makes him angrier. “Not to mention what it’ll do to the team - your _friends_ \- how can you lie to them like this? How can you make me lie to them?”

“They’ll be better off-”

“Bullshit.”

For all of her battered brittleness, she sits up, grimacing, and stares him down with a glare that she’s used during some of their more heated confrontations. “They _will_ be better off without me, and you’ll lie to them because it’s what’s best for the team. And for me. It’s your duty to look out for them, so just do it and stop insisting that your opinion has any place in this decision.”

The moment sort of stalls for him as the poisonous vertigo that he felt when he thought she might die grabs hold again and spins him. She seems so determined that it almost convinces him. But something has changed, and he doesn’t think that it’s the damage that Doyle inflicted on her. He reminds himself that he knows her… he can get through if he finds the right leverage point…

“We have a deal.” He unleashes the best of what he has. “Don’t go where I can’t follow, Emily.”

Her eyes widen and her stare collapses, and, for an instant, he thinks that he’s broken through. The spinning slows and he feels that he has a shot at stopping the nausea in its tracks, because surely she won’t leave now, not when she realizes exactly what it’ll mean to him if she goes… But something bubbles out of her chest and it changes everything on her face in the process. What he took for empathy comes across as pity when a grin curls her lips and the laughter erases all doubt.

“Don’t be a cliché, Aaron. We had some fun, you and I, but this is work and I know that you understand what that means.”

He doesn’t understand what that means because he’s not certain he understands anything at that exact moment. The only thing that makes any sense to him now is gravity, and he suddenly wishes that it would increase exponentially and crush him into the surface of the earth. It would undoubtedly be less painful than being in this room and discovering that he’s completely disposable. He’s staring at her, wondering how he could’ve missed all of this, and her expression changes. She leans as far forward as pain will allow and softens her voice.

“Hey, now. We’re similar creatures, remember? This was what it was. The lie won’t be so hard to sell to the others since I’m not coming back…” Her voice cracks but her smile remains. “And… you should take this opportunity to find someone who’ll take care of you. You know, go up to New York and visit Beth… patch that up…”

“I don’t _love_ Beth.” He spits it at her as if she’s just fed him something awful and her smile freezes on her face. “I don’t think we’re that similar after all: I’d never let you go this way.”

Her smile falls away entirely and he hears the heart monitor speed up a little. She looks down at her hands and worries the sheet between her fingers. Her fingernails are bitten down to the quicks.

“Sorry about that. You know that I’m a little callous.”

“Yes. World’s first living heart donor.”

She snaps her gaze to him and he tells himself that the look he sees there isn’t sadness.

“If this lie is all you want from me, then I’ll do it. Think of it as my final consideration towards you.”

There’s rustling behind him and a surgical nurse enters the room and immediately begins making a fuss about his appearance in a sterile environment. She gets louder as she pushes him towards the door and, with all of the fight gone from him, he just lets her. Prentiss doesn’t say a thing, but she’s looking at him as if she’s trying to memorize every part of him until he’s shoved unceremoniously into the hallway.


	28. Chapter 28

This lie involves a lot of paperwork. Perhaps it’s a blessing. After he and J.J. break the news of Prentiss’s ‘death’ and he watches Reid nearly collapse from the sudden grief, all he wants to do was be elsewhere. It is too soon for him to wear his sympathetic leader mask without it cracking under the pressure of his private devastation.

The doctor hands him another form to sign. This one will issue a fake death certificate. They are doing it in a private office because the less people involved in this deception the better. Hotch hands the form back and the doctor shuffles through what he’s got so far.

“What about next of kin?” He asks distractedly. “Does she have any family?”

“A mother.” Hotch says on autopilot. “I know her. I’ll take care of it.”

“Good. I’ve never gotten used to dealing with grieving family members. Let alone people grieving over someone who’s not dead in the first place. It seems cruel.”

“It is.”

The doctor looks up at him sympathetically. He’s younger than Hotch expects a surgeon to be; maybe he’ll get better at handling death as he gets older.

“Now, what would you like me to do about her medical records?”

“Isn’t it just a matter of stipulating time and manner of death, and then getting the coroner’s office to sign off on a death certificate?”

“Yes, but her family will have a right to her medical records. Since we’re already falsifying them, should I delete the D&C notation? You know, to spare them further distress?”

“D&C…?” Hotch has been writing on a clipboard that has Prentiss’s records on it. He skims down and clearly sees the acronym in the doctor’s handwriting. “She was pregnant?”

“Yes. Six weeks. She was a little hysterical when we told her that it didn’t survive the shock of the attack and surgery - the first trimester can be a bit of a crapshoot even without a traumatic event. I think that it was recent news to her as well and she was just getting used to the idea…”

_No, no, no, no…_

He tosses the clipboard on the doctor’s desk and is out the door before the guy can ask where the hell he’s going. He’s moving like he’s chasing some knife-wielding maniac through a playground, knocking nurses and patients and relatives brutally aside without a second thought. His mind has narrowed to one goal: he just has to get to her before she leaves. He can’t let it end like this… not like this. His dress shoes slide on the linoleum as he just misses the elevator, so he slams into the emergency stairwell and climbs them two at a time.

_Em, just wait… please…_

By the time he reaches the post-op floor he’s starting to feel his age and he still has to run a gauntlet of very aggressive nurses. Some of them gasp but more than a few of them try to take him on like tiny, sterile linebackers and he wonders absently if they get training in this. When two determined nurses and an impressive orderly finally stop him, he looks around for an escape route. His gaze lands on the nurse that had tossed him from Prentiss’s room and he barks loud enough to get the entire ward’s attention.

“Where’s the woman from room 745?” He suddenly remembers Prentiss’s cover. “Have they moved her body yet? Is she _still here?_ ”

“Keep your voice down!” The nurse hisses. “She’s gone. The coroner collected her twenty minutes ago. Do I have to call security?”

He nearly sags in his captors’ grip. _Emily… not like this…_

The coroner’s orderlies were probably Interpol flunkies - god knows where she is now. He hears Reid’s voice in his head in that moment - _I never got to say good-bye_ \- and feels as though he’ll lose any semblance of sanity if he doesn’t get out of this hospital immediately. Today he’s lost something that he wanted, as well as something that he didn’t even know he had, and it feels like the universe has turned, taken notice of him, and focused all of it’s unfortunate energy in his direction. He shakes off the self-pity but decides to buy some bourbon on the way home anyway.

He turns to the fascist nurse as he shrugs off his man handlers. “I’m fine. Tell Dr. Canderel that he can forward any additional paperwork to the Behavioral Analysis Unit at Quantico. He’ll know which patient I mean.”

He smoothes the lines of his suit, _…makes you look like Jimmy Stewart. No one hated Jimmy Stewart…_ , sets his jaw, and walks slowly towards the elevator.


	29. Chapter 29

Sometimes he finds himself in the staff kitchen pouring two cups of coffee before he realizes his mistake. Even when his mind snaps back to the present, he still can’t stop himself; his body locked into a muscle memory that he can’t seem to alter. He adds the cream - just enough to lighten it imperceptibly. He watches it form a slow swirl, too dense and pure to mix with the murky liquid as it fights to maintain its boundaries. Eventually, he lowers a spoon into the cup and gently stirs them together obliterating their uniqueness until they can no longer be separated from one another. The sight always fills him with the sadness and weight that he usually reserves for anonymous dead people. Sadness for the sudden ending of possibility. The sadness of Monday morning after a useless weekend.

He pours the coffee down the drain and carefully rinses the mug before taking his own (black) back to his office.

She has been gone for six months and he still finds himself doing this. He’s hit the reset button more times than he can count but the connection is never made and now he is stuck in a loop of useless remembering.


	30. Chapter 30

He pulls up to the bar, tired and dirty, and manages to order a beer with a combination of hand signals and the few words of Czech that he knows. The bartender looks him over dispassionately, probably trying to determine if Hotch is worth scamming or not. Half of the people he’s met here look like Eastern Block Edward G. Robinsons; the whole city might as well have a blinking sign above it saying ‘gangsters welcome’. The beer is cold and flavorful - these people know their beer - and he half collapses onto a bar stool as his body gives into this small pleasure. Afghanistan took a lot out of him, and that was the plan, however it didn’t take the part that he was aiming to get rid of in the first place.

He drains his beer, scratches his beard, and thinks about ordering another. He has thirty hours to kill before his flight back to D.C. and he’d rather not spend it on the barracks with a bunch of twenty year old jarheads. He can’t ever remember being that young, even when he was in service. There’s something about their enthusiasm, their gung-ho patriotism that exhausts him. Things haven’t been that black and white for him in years and perhaps he’s not cruel enough to destroy their illusions about what they’re doing. The world needs people strong enough to face down its monsters; disillusionment will come in due course.

He orders another beer and it tastes as good as the first. He hasn’t been on a serious bender since… well, since _she_ left and there’s a part of him that’s proud he’s been facing everything sober. His father’s genes do not rule him. But right now he’s earnestly considering making a night of it at this bar. He won’t be able to when he gets home; his obligations to Jack and the Unit will be front and center once again. He has commitments that won’t be ignored.

He checks out the room in the warped reflection of the mirror behind the bar. It’s pretty quiet and the patrons seem content to keep to themselves. There’s a slightly rowdy group near the door and he wonders if that will be a problem as the evening progresses. He turns and watches them sideways: they look rough, maybe ex-military, and they are having a good time for now. One of them gets up and stumbles away, presumably to the bathroom, and he sees that there’s a woman sitting with them as well. She turns so that he can see her face and he stops breathing.

He rotates back to face the bar and squeezes his eyes shut as his breath comes back to him in hard, uneven gulps. He’s seeing things - he doesn’t know what to do. He can’t feel his hands or feet and he doesn’t think that he could speak if his life depended on it, and he begins to worry that he might be genuinely having a stroke or something. He can’t even be sure it was her; he only saw her for a second before turning away. But he can’t look back - he _can’t_ \- what the hell would he do then?

He feels a body edge up to the bar and then he hears someone order in Czech. The bartender fills the order like his ass is made of lead but Hotch keeps his eyes locked on the bar top. When the guy wanders away, the figure next to him doesn’t leave. He feels the atmosphere around him change and then he hears a voice directed at him.

“Jsi osamělý?”

“I don’t speak Czech.” He manages to grit out without looking up.

“American, yes?” Her accent is perfect. He finds himself looking up and hoping that he’s mistaken, but Prentiss looks back at him in garish make-up and clothes under a seamless mask of someone else. “I like Americans.”

“Do you.” He growls.

“You look for a date?” She smiles and leans against the bar like a low-rent pro.

“Looks like you have a date. A few of them.”

“Like Americans better.” She pulls into his personal space as if they’re negotiating. “Like American dollars too.”

“How much?” He breathes after a moment and then she leans in to brush her lips against his ear.

“Finish your drink and leave.” She whispers. “Take the first street on your left and then the first right. There’s a magazine stand on that street and a building with a faded blue door behind it. Wait for me there.”

She leans away and slaps him hard across the face, her expression a perfect picture of indignation. “Ty jeden lakomej hajzle! Go find mule to date if all you have is carrots!”

The bartender lurches over and exchanges something brutal with Prentiss, who gives him an earful in Czech in return. Then she collects her drink order and stomps back to the rowdy table who don’t seem to give a damn that she may have been peddling her wares elsewhere. Hotch chokes back his beer as the bartender eyes him.

“Woman.” The bartender nods in Prentiss’s direction. “Trouble.”

“Yes, I agree.” Hotch gets up and lays payment on the bar before turning to go. 

He leaves quickly and doesn’t make eye contact as he exits. Following her instructions, he finds himself in one of the scarier streets he’s ever seen and waits in a shadowed doorway for nearly forty minutes until she follows. She brushes past him and unlocks the faded blue door and then nods for him to pass through. She leads him silently up two flights of stairs to a shabby room at the back of the building. They push through the door into a single room with an ugly Paris shower in one corner and a worn bed in the other. Prentiss closes and locks the door, and then turns back to face him as if she’s just invited a ghost home.

“What are you doing here?” She whispers.

“What are _you_ doing here?” He huffs suddenly very angry with her and the stinging imprint of her hand that lingers across his face. She makes a derisive noise and gives him a look that says he should know better than to ask. “I’m not here for you, if that’s what you’re concerned about. You made it very clear that you didn’t need me when we last saw one another.”

The statement makes her twitch and her stance loses some of its strength. She turns away from him quickly and fetches a basin from beside the bed. Carrying it past him, she opens a small door that he assumed was a closet but turns out to be the world’s smallest washroom. She fills the basin with water and begins scrubbing the whore make-up off with her hands.

“Jesus, this place is a hole, Prentiss…” How long has she been living like this?

“It’s got running water and the bed is vermin-free. I’ve held up in worse.” She pats down her face with a grey towel and wanders back into the room. “Do you have any idea what sort of bar that was? What types hang out there?”

“No, but evidently you do.” He mumbles. “I can take care of myself too, you know.”

“I’m just trying to figure out why you were there, or why the hell you’re in Prague in the first place. If not for me.”

He sighs - it wasn’t important enough to keep it from her. “It’s a stopover. I’m coming back from Afghanistan. I was just there tonight for the beer.”

“Afghanistan?” She seems a little breathless. “What were you doing in Afghanistan?”

“I was on loan to Army Intelligence. I can’t tell you specifics, so don’t ask.”

“Why would… what about the Unit? What about Jack?”

“Jack’s with his aunt - he’s fine.”

“That doesn’t really answer my question.”

“Well, that seems fitting, doesn’t it?” He snaps and then rubs his hand over his face as he regrets it. “Sorry…”

“No, I’m sorry.” She murmurs. “I don’t have a right to your life anymore.”

Her words slice him so intensely that he looks to his feet to see if his guts have spilled out across the floor for real. He takes a series of shallow breaths to ease back from the sharpness of it.

“Were you embedded?” She asks.

“Yes.”

“Are you okay?”

“More or less.” He sighs and looks at her because her voice grows softer as she asks. “You? Are you okay here, I mean?”

“More or less.” She smirks sadly. “How long are you here for?”

“My transport is tomorrow evening. I couldn’t get anything sooner thanks to Army efficiency…”

“Tell me that you’re going home to Jack.” Her voice is very quiet and he tells himself to ignore that entirely.

“Yes.”

“Good.”

“Your relief is unnecessary.” He can’t help being snappish - she’s making him feel raw all over. “I wasn’t running away from Jack or the Unit.”

“Just into a war zone.”

He sighs and gives her one of his old Supervisory Special Agent scowls even though they never really worked on her. “We do what we’re meant to - we don’t always get a choice.”

“I’m pretty sure that there were quite a few choices between being SSIC of the BAU and getting yourself seconded to Army Intelligence for god knows what in Afghanistan, Hotch.”

“Fewer than you’d think.” He isn’t going to tell her that his impulse for self-destruction had reduced those choices to practically none at all. 

“Well, one of the things that you’re ‘meant’ to do is look after that little boy, and I don’t see how you’re doing that by hiding out in the desert and inviting yourself to get blown up by an IED or something.”

“Emily,” She is weirdly focused on Jack and it feels like a deflection. He takes a breath and decides that he’ll never get a better chance to ask this. “Were you ever going to tell me about the baby?”

The colour drains from her face and he wants to tell her to sit down but the bed is the only piece of furniture in the place. She shuffles over to the old tub under the Paris shower and perches herself on its pockmarked rim.

“It’s just-” His mind stutters because he’s never really given himself permission to think about her motivation in those weeks before she left. “A _baby_ , Em…”

“I… I’d only just found out before Doyle reappeared in D.C. Perhaps I was in denial about how it happened…”

He raises an eyebrow in confusion.

“ _Obviously_ I know how it happened, but I’m usually very careful. I figure that it was around the time I was shot. I was on antibiotics… they must have messed with the birth control…” She sighs and then shakes her head viciously as if she can get rid of the memory that way. “The point is that it was really unexpected and I was still trying to make up my mind about it when Doyle happened.”

“Oh.” He wants to be reasonable about this but he’s finding that next to impossible. “And you didn’t feel that I had a stake in that decision?”

“I was kinda busy covering my ass and trying not to die.” She rises from the lip of the tub and looks as if she’s about to apologize again when she changes tactics and shrugs dramatically instead. “I don’t know - I was a coward, okay? I was scared about what it would mean, either way I decided to go…”

He just watches her as her expression pleads for something from him - understanding, maybe? He wants to give her that but he just can’t get over how disposable she’s made him feel, both then and now.

“Would you have wanted it?” She whispers suddenly.

“Yes.” He doesn’t hesitate for a second. “I would have stood by whatever decision you made, but if my opinion counted for anything… yes.”

She crosses the room and drops down onto the sagging mattress and holds her head in her hands. She lets out a single, quiet sob. “Aaron…”

He’s across the room and sitting next to her before he can think about it. The bedsprings groan under their weight and his knees rise higher than his waist making him awkward and uncomfortable.

“If I had known… I probably would’ve been a little more sensitive during our last conversation.”

“That’s crap.” She sniffles but he doesn’t know if he should comfort her or not. “You said what you had to say. Don’t apologize for it - it’s one of your few endearing qualities.”

“Hold on now - I don’t know if I can stand so much praise…”

She looks up and sees him smirking, and gives one back of her own. He feels his backbone slouch a little as some tension abandons him.

“I didn’t mean those things I said.” She mumbles into her hands. “I shouldn’t have insulted you by trivializing what happened between us. I just needed you to forget about me. I thought that hate was the easiest, fastest way to do that. But, Christ, you almost had me with that ‘don’t go where I can’t follow’ line…”

She’s leaning a little in his direction and he reaches out and pulls her against him with an arm around her shoulder. He sighs over the top of her head and she buries her face in his travel-worn shirt. He probably smells awful - like the desert and gasoline and gun oil - and he thinks that she’s sniffing him until her whole body hitches against his and he realizes that she’s crying instead.

“I wanted that baby too.” She says so quietly he can barely make it out, but he does, and it turns him inside out. They might have been more, they might have been a family… All he can do is hold her to him and rock them until there’s nothing to focus on but the sound of the rusty bedsprings.

“What an ungodly mess this is.” He says it out loud because he thinks that the universe ought to know how pissed off he is. 

“Maybe it’s what we deserve.”

“Maybe.” He doesn’t really agree but he’s too tired to argue with her. “I can’t believe that I went to Afghanistan to lose the part of me that needs you and I end up finding you again instead.”

“Is that really why you went?” She mumbles into his shirt without looking at him.

“I couldn’t feel anything anymore, Emily. It was just like before except you weren’t there to pull me back. I had to try something, if only for Jack’s sake.”

“You could’ve been killed in the process.”

“Yeah.” That never really bothered him. Jack would still have his aunt, and the team would be there for him. He knew that his runts would rally around his orphaned son - Jack would have an extended family of extremely capable people looking out for him.

“Yeah?” She glances up and stares at him with a puffy glare. “That’s all you’ve got for that - _‘yeah’?_ You’re such a shitheel. You have _no idea_ what your death would do to all sorts of people!”

Clearly not. He wonders what his death would do to her, if anything. At one time, he thought he knew, but based on this conversation he’s not certain at all. Maybe it is the war zones and the traveling and the covert action and the beer, but he really doesn’t feel up to parsing anymore of this. He just wants eight hours of uninterrupted sleep and a chance to catch his breath. It doesn’t feel like it’s too much to ask, but right now it seems hopelessly beyond his reach.

“Emily?”

“What!” Her face is getting mottled with the anger that she’s holding back.

“I’m worn out, and I think that you are too. Can we table this fight for another time?”

“What makes you think that I’ll be around later?”

“What makes you think that I’ll just give up on all the things I have to say?”

She stares at him for a cold, hard minute and he’s certain that she’s lining up something devastating to say to him when she just shakes her head and hisses out a resentful breath instead. “Lie down then.”

He blinks. “I was… I meant… The Army booked a room for me at The Amadeus…” He’d dropped his bags there before he wandered out in search of booze.

“Lie. Down.” She says it clearly and arches an eyebrow at him. “I’m not delusional, Aaron - I don’t assume that my allure can trump everything else that I’ve done to you. But we’re both here and, you’re right, we’re both tired beyond reason. So if we get a little rack time, we might still be able to sort some of this out amicably before one or both of us has to disappear again.”

He grumbles non-committally but lies back to the groan of rusty springs. He stretches out and then she aligns herself next to him, surprising him by laying her head against one of his shoulders. He holds still for a moment, thinking that this is the least restful he’s ever felt, and then she props her head up to look at him.

“Take your shirt off.” She wrinkles her nose. “You smell like twenty dirty, sweaty guys.”

“That’s about right…” He mumbles but feels self-conscious at the same time.

“In my bag under the bed…”

She nods at him and he grapples around under the bed until his hand hits something. He hoists up an old leather bag and she roots around until she finds what she wants and dumps a shirt on his chest before lying back down again. It’s his Stanford t-shirt. His fingers edge the worn hem as he tries to swallow down the lump in his throat.

“You took it with you.”

Prentiss makes a muffled grunt and nothing more. He sits up and shrugs off his shirt in favor of the one that feels like a second skin, the one that she lugged across Europe long after she left him feeling disposable and irrelevant. Then he lies back and she slots herself against his shoulder again without comment. They both lie still for several minutes and then he feels her fingers catch the edge of the shirt fabric. She curls a tiny handful as if it’ll anchor them both here and then she breathes out expansively. He looks down and watches her head rise and fall slightly in time with his breath, her hand holding onto his shirt, and all of the practical faith that he’s had in her since the day they met seems to evaporate before his eyes. He can’t reconcile this image of someone who needs comfort with the concept of the agent that Interpol has enough confidence in to send her after a murderous arms dealer without back-up. But then again, maybe his image doesn’t bear up when faced with the guy who gets sentimental about an ex stealing his clothes. 

“He’s here, in Prague.” She whispers but it shocks him nonetheless. “I confirmed it this evening with those knuckle-draggers in the bar. It’s the closest I’ve gotten so far.”

“Does he know you’re here?”

“He knows that I’m after him, but he doesn’t know where I am.”

“How can you be certain?”

“Because he’s here to do business. He wouldn’t take the risk if he knew I was so close.”

“What sort of business?” He’s got a bad feeling about this based on the amoral military guys at the bar.

She sighs and then turns a little so that she’s looking up at him. “He’s taking delivery of some sarin gas from the Russians. Some Czech freelancers are the cutouts.”

He tries to sit up but she presses her hand down into his chest to keep him still. “Emily, does Interpol know about this deal?”

“They’d just tell me to stand down-”

“And they’d be right! You need a full tactical team for this kind of operation!”

“Aaron, there’s _one_ Interpol officer in the entire Czech Republic. One. By the time they got men on the ground here, the deal’d be done and Doyle would be three countries away taking bids from terrorist cells from North Africa, the Middle East, North Korea… it would be impossible to track. That can’t happen and you know it.”

“It’s _sarin_ , Emily! If this goes wrong it could be catastrophic.”

She rolls her eyes at his statement and he wants to shake her until the danger makes sense to her. “He’s not a true believer - this is just product to him. He’d never waste something so valuable when bullets will do. The marketplace has changed and if you want to run with the big boys, you’ve gotta go biochemical. It’s the new black in the arms trade. He’s desperate - I’ve backed him into a corner and forced him out into the open. It’s now or never - this is what the last six months have been about.”

He just stares at her - she seems so sure that she can do this alone. Tactically, he knows that it is suicide. “How have you made him desperate enough to show?”

“When I realized that I’d never be able to catch up to him, I decided to make him come to me, figuratively anyway. I’ve made his attempts to get back into the business… uncomfortable for him. I’ve leaked his suppliers to various police agencies and dropped a lot of dimes on plenty of his deals so, basically, he’s got a stink about him with those in the know.” She smirks. “No one wants to deal with him, either supply or demand, and the only way back to the table is with something undeniable. Biochemical weapons brings everyone to the yard, even if your rep is unsavory.”

He’s proud for a moment - he can’t help it - because it’s an effective way to ensure that Doyle never sees the light of day again in his lifetime when one considers that biochemical warfare is the boogeyman of international law enforcement. No country in the world would consider letting Doyle go free if he is found within fifty miles of a deadly, weaponized toxin. But it is a plan that requires planning and assets and timely intelligence updates and a hell of a lot more than just one agent on the ground. 

“Emily, this is impossible to pull off on your own. _Please._ Contact Interpol right now… or let me contact the State Department. One mention of sarin and they’ll get an ops team out here even if they have to do an illegal high altitude drop…” 

“It’s too late for that.” She reaches out and holds his face. “He’s taking delivery tomorrow at Mala Amerika. At least if something goes wrong, we’re in the middle of a quarry… exposure will be limited.”

“This is crazy! You’re not going anywhere, I don’t care how much work you’ve put into this or what’s at stake!” He sits up and shrugs her off as the bed complains and roots around in his cargo pants for his phone. “I agreed to lie for you, to forget you, but there’s no threat or argument that can convince me to let you walk into your own suicide-”

“Alright, alright!” She grabs his phone and hoists herself away from him on the bed. “I’ll call my Interpol case officer. We’re not getting State involved… the last thing I want is a bunch of black ops spooks lurking in the countryside…”

“Call now.” He growls. “I want to hear it.”

She gives him a furious look with which he is sadly familiar, but then hisses at him while dialing. A brief, hushed conversation occurs and then she hangs up and shoves the phone back at him with a look that says ‘satisfied?’ but suggests that she doesn’t really give a damn about his answer.

“I’m stood down.” She seethes.

“I’m sorry, Emily, but deep down - practically - you know that it’s the only option. You can’t ask me to sanction this.”

“I don’t work for you.” She bites out.

“No, you don’t. But you know me, so why did you tell me any of it? You had to know that I’d stop you.”

“I felt that I owed you the truth, so that no matter what happened, you’d know _why_. I walked away from a life and a chance to have a family for this…”

His chest gets tight because she’s skirting the edges of his real reasons for interfering. So long as she’s alive, there’s a chance.

“But you don’t have to die for it. You’re worth more than Doyle.”

“Worth more than the lives of all of his potential victims?”

He wants to say ‘you’re worth more to me’ but doesn’t because her anger would shape it into something ugly. “There’s still time - Interpol can catch him.”

“They won’t.” She mumbles and looks away.

“Em,” He waits for her to turn back to him. “Lie down. You can’t keep going on like this.”

She closes her eyes and sighs. Her whole body sags into the movement and after a moment he reaches out and pulls her gently back to him. They both lie themselves out again and he waits until he feels her go limp next to him.

“Let this one go and come at it fresh in the morning.” His hand soothes a strand of hair away from her face.

She’s silent against him for a long time and he finds himself starting to drift in the warmth that they generate together. When she speaks again, she sounds sleepy too but it doesn’t blunt her words.

“Your faith in me used to be the thing that kept me going.”

~~~~~

He wakes and blinks into the grey light that’s illuminating the room. His arm is stretched out awkwardly and he curls it into his chest to get the feeling back. Its progress is stopped by a metal clink and suddenly he’s wide awake and staring at the handcuff around his wrist. He yanks it once but he’s securely chained to the bed frame and he doesn’t even have to look around to know that she’s gone. His phone is on the floor next to his abandoned army shirt and he reaches for it and checks the call list: no outgoing calls were made in the night.

“Jesus, you can’t tell that woman anything!”

Then he’s kneeling on the floor next to the bed and working a rusty spring free to pick the handcuffs. God knows how much of a head start she has, and now he has absolutely no choice but to follow her even though he has about as much faith that he can save her as he does that she can pull this off.


	31. Chapter 31

He calls in every favor that he’s gathered from his work in Afghanistan, and in the end just settles for scaring the shit out of a corporal in the armory. Then he’s pushing the limits of the base Humvee that he stole as he barrels south out of Prague with only a GPS tracking unit and a vague notion of where he’s going.

The Mala Amerika quarry is smaller than the nearby Velka Amerika quarry, but even so he has no idea where the deal might be taking place or what sort of terrain to expect - it’s just a blinking red dot on his GPS reader. He abandons the Humvee off the road about a half mile from the main entrance and covers the rest on foot with a camo bag strapped across his back. He’s thankful that he still trains for triathlons but by the time he spots cars parked near the run down quarry offices in the main basin, he’s straining and feeling every minute of his forty-six years.

He looks around for activity and has to wait an unbearable length of time for anything to happen. His legs cramp as he crouches behind piles of shale high above the basin but then he sees a group of men exit one of the quarry shacks and walk behind it out of sight. His legs are happy to be moving again as he runs around the upper ridge to get a view behind the shack: out in the open there are four men standing around a dark sedan, waiting. He can’t see anyone else. The meeting ground is a good distance from every quarry building except the one that the men exited from, so he doesn’t have a lot of great choices and has to move quickly - the deal is probably imminent. 

He chooses the building closest to him mostly because it will hide his descent down into the basin efficiently. But when he breaks into it and finds a suitable window facing the meeting ground, he realizes that the distance between him and the target is probably just outside his effective range. His pulse thuds against his temples and throat, and he swears brutally to himself in order to assert some measure of control over the situation. He’ll just have to be perfect today, that’s all.

He quickly sets up his nest and assembles the rifle. When he’s done he drapes the khaki rifle bag across what little of him can be seen in the abandoned window of the shack and surveys the scene through his gun sight. The men are Doyle’s - he’s easily recognizable at the center of the group, dressed for neither sightseeing nor felonious activity in a dark suit. Perhaps even in the arms trade you have to dress to impress. Hotch quickly scans the surrounding area paying particular attention to any areas of cover. There aren’t many - Doyle has chosen well - and he tries not to wonder where Prentiss is. Doyle’s goons don’t seem too keyed up so it’s unlikely that they’ve had an Interpol-shaped problem to deal with already. That’s something, he guesses. 

Another dark sedan and a small freight truck arrive, moving slowly towards the meeting area before stopping. Doyle’s guys take up flanking positions as more men in dark suits begin to spill from the two vehicles. Through the sight Hotch can see Doyle smile in welcome. A man with an angry scar on his face breaks away from the rest and Doyle walks to meet him with a hand outstretched. The two men talk briefly as the heavies glare at each other from their respective camps; the mood is tense but controlled. Everyone here is a pro. Hotch takes his time and lines up each man in his sight, gauging distance, windage, and probably reaction time. The shots will echo a lot, making his location harder to spot - it might buy him a few extra seconds. He rests his finger along the rifle’s trigger guard and waits.

Doyle and Scarface shake hands again and one of Doyle’s men produces a satellite phone and gives it to him. Then Doyle gestures. Scarface nods towards the truck and both he and Doyle chose a man and then walk over to the vehicle and open the back. Doyle’s man hops into the truck while the rest wait outside. The goon steps out, apparently satisfied, Doyle makes a quick call, and then one of Scarface’s associates consults a tablet and nods at his boss. Transaction complete. Doyle’s man retrieves a set of keys from one of Scarface’s men as the truck is closed up and everyone efficiently collapses back into their cars and to leave. Hotch watches the cutouts go - they aren’t important. Now he’s focused on Doyle’s car where all but the truck driver retreat to, and is looking around because _this_ is the moment when Prentiss would make her move if she’s actually here. 

Doyle makes another call on his phone, uninterested in hurrying, and two of his three men move towards the car. Nothing happens. Prentiss doesn’t suddenly manifest in front of Doyle and Hotch can’t see any movement on the perimeter. Now he finds himself in an uncomfortable position because it’s _him_ out there on his own and his only goal had been to protect _her_. But he can’t let Doyle walk away with the sarin… He settles into the rifle and aims at the truck hood in his sight. It might take a few shots but he can probably pierce the engine block and that means that no one will get away with anything while he deals with the rest.

An explosion goes off close to the car sending the truck driver through the air and flattening Doyle to the ground. _Grenade._ Gravel and limestone rain down on the vehicles but they’re in one piece. Hotch doesn’t bother to look for the source - his eyes snap to the sedan and when the near side door opens revealing a gun-toting goon, he only gets one leg outside before Hotch’s bullet snaps his head to the side and crumples his body back into the car. His sight flicks to the far side door but the other man is too well covered by the car - he’s only focused on the site of the explosion and probably isn’t aware that his cohort’s brains are leaking into the backseat. Doyle is up and running for the driver’s side and gets to it before Hotch can fire. He sends two bullets into the truck hood instead, as he previously planned and at the same time another grenade goes off. 

That’s when he sees her breaking cover from the nearest shack, couching low and moving as if she isn’t outgunned and running through a hail of limestone. She focuses on the second guy in the car, gun raised saying nothing but advancing as if she’s unstoppable. Hotch holds his breath and tries to find a shot but the guy is completely covered by the car from his angle. Prentiss and the second goon exchange fire, but then Hotch sees movement off to the left and realizes that the truck driver isn’t dead; he’s pulled a gun and has a clear shot at Prentiss’s back. Hotch adjusts his aim and shoots making the guy go down for good and Prentiss isn’t even aware that the driver had a bead on her in the first place. She’s still shooting at the guy on the far side, hunching next to front wheel well and forcing the guy to shoot around the door that’s offering him so much protection. He ducks and shoots, ducks and shoots, and when Prentiss offers him a nice, easy shot, she proves that she’s faster and takes him down cleanly. 

Now there’s just Doyle and he hasn’t moved from inside the darkened sedan. Hotch decides to up the ante a little and puts two rounds in the sedan’s hood for good measure - if Doyle gets out of here, he’ll be walking. Prentiss crouches against the passenger door so that Hotch can’t make her out. And then she yells something. Hotch is too far away to hear it, but he imagines that she has things to say to Doyle regardless of whether she’s pinned down by an unknown shooter. He hears her voice again and then the driver door opens as Doyle bends behind it and aims across the hood at her. They are shouting at each other and now Hotch has a choice to make. He has a clear line on Doyle and even at his outer limits, he’s already proven that he could make a killshot at this distance. And Hotch _wants_ to kill him for everything he did that made Emily the way she is, and for the child that he’ll never have. But Doyle owes so much more to Emily, and she risked everything for this moment. Hotch doesn’t feel that he can steal it from her. Nevertheless…

He aims, breathes, and focuses on the best shot he can make, then pulls the trigger. Without the distraction of grenades and other gunfire, his shot echoes monstrously across the quarry. Hotch releases his breath and watches Doyle squirm next to the driver’s side doorframe, his gun hand nothing more than a bloody stump. The man lets out a piercing howl and clutches his arm to his chest.  
 _That will have to be enough._

Hotch finds Prentiss in his sight and watches as she looks around to try and determine where the shot came from. The sight won’t give him detail but he knows that she’s trying to figure out if she’s next.

“It’s okay.” He whispers and waits until she makes up her mind to go through the passenger door and crawl across the seats to Doyle’s side. She watches him thrash around in an ever-expanding pool of his own blood, and then decides to take the risk. She steps out and stands over him. He yells viciously at her and tries to crawl away but she follows him. Hotch can see her lips moving but Doyle keeps yelling over her. Eventually, she raises her gun and Doyle freezes, watching as she comes to stand over him again.

“He’s all yours now.” Hotch mumbles and then tears himself away from the sight; this is moment just for her and he leaves her to it, even though they made it happen together. He quickly dismantles the rifle and packs it up, slinging the camo bag across his back. He’s running flat out and is halfway to the ridge that will lead him back to the Humvee when he hears the shot ring out. He hopes that it was more satisfying than his.


	32. Chapter 32

He takes one last look around his room and determines that no one would guess he’d ever been there before he grabs his bag and gun, and exits into the hotel hallway. But she’s there at the other end walking towards his room and he loses all ability to move. She watches him eyes flicking to the long camo bag he’s carrying as she closes the distance and then, wordlessly, he steps aside to let her in sealing himself back into the anonymous room with her.

“That was you today at the quarry.” She frames it as a statement but her tone suggests that she’s not sure. He stares at her, exhausted like he’s never been before, and eventually cocks an eyebrow, which is pretty much the only confirmation that he can give considering how many laws they’ve broken together in twenty-four hours.

“Jesus.” She whispers as her gaze widens in awe. “Where the hell did you pick up that skill?”

“It’s a long story, and not particularly interesting. Let’s just say that my recent Afghan adventure forced me to brush up on some old talents.”

He watches her closely - her face is washed out and cut from the limestone shrapnel.

“The sarin?” He whispers.

“Got it-”

He holds up his hand to stop her. “It’s probably best if you don’t give me any details. I just needed to know that it’s secure.”

She nods and there’s a long minute that they spend just staring at one another too worn and tattered around the edges to hide anything anymore. His heart aches to see her like this; she so very rarely allows herself to be vulnerable.

“Thank you.” She says it softly and slowly, measuring out each letter with a weighted care that hits him square in the chest. He feels himself blushing and looks at his boots.

“You had to know…”

“Know what?”

“That you were never alone in this.” He glances back up and sees that she doesn’t have a response to protect herself against that. “Not once I saw you again. We made each other a promise, no matter how resentful it was in spirit at the beginning. I try to keep my promises.”

“Aaron…”

“That’s the thing that you never understood completely.” He talks over her but keeps his voice low. This is a conversation between two ghosts in a place outside of normal life. “The pact wasn’t optional back when we first made it - when we couldn’t stand the sight of one another. What would make you think that it was any more optional later on?”

“I just wanted to protect you…” There is more but her voice cracks and she stops.

“So did I.” He smiles sadly. “Which is why you’re welcome even though I was never here.” 

She snorts and breaks into a knowing grin, and the sight of it forces an uncharacteristic chuckle from him. It eases the tension and then they fall into staring once again as the city goes about its noisy business in the street below.

“I was keeping another promise today as well.” He whispers and wonders if she can hear him above the rattle of trams outside. “One that I never said to you, but it was no less important.”

“What was that?”

“To do what love tells me to. I’m a pragmatist, so it’s not an easy promise to keep sometimes.”

Her expression shifts from curiosity to pain so quickly that it shocks him. He’s been living with the finality of their relationship much longer than she; he’s clearly more used to it. He wonders if he looked like that in those first few weeks after she left and can’t believe that no one called him on it if he did.

“Anyway… I’ve gotta go. I’m booked on a transport in an hour and there’s an armory corporal that I have to see first.” He needs to get out of there - he can’t watch her fall apart. It’ll kill him, and he can’t have helped her murder a man in order to free her if it’s just going to trap her in a new way. 

“Wait… is _that_ it?” Her incredulity stops him as he reaches for the door. “You help me kill a bunch of guys, you tell me that you did it for love, and then… you just walk away?”

“I don’t have any say in what you decide to do next.” He fixes her with one of his brutal stares and sets his jaw. She was always very clear about her autonomy.

“No say? Jesus! You are an incredible asshole sometimes…” She runs her fingers through her hair roughly and then gives him a look that plainly asks for help. “What am I supposed to do now? I’m not supposed to _be here_ , Aaron.”

He lowers his bags to the ground slowly, confused by her statement and the fear in her eyes. “What do you mean?”

“I mean…” She breathes out through her nose, frustrated at him. “That the moment I betrayed Doyle, I knew that I was walking around on borrowed time. So long as he lived, I was in jeopardy - he’d never give up on his revenge. I had to accept that my life was no longer my own - to do with, or to risk as I wished. That meant few connections and no family… it’s difficult to live as if your existence could end any day and still be… well, human.”

She steps towards him - just one step - and worries her hands a little. He sees that her nails have been bitten down to the quicks; some of the cuticles are bloody.

“But years went by. I started to believe that maybe I was mistaken. I had work to do - good, meaningful work. And I developed a family, almost against my wishes.” She smiles and he knows that she’s thinking of her runts. _His_ runts. “When Sean contacted me about Doyle’s escape, when Clyde told me that my Interpol team was dead, when Doyle found me and told me how he’d get to everyone and leave me for last, I knew that my life, from his incarceration onward, had just been a slow-motion suicide.”

He takes a step towards her now, finally grasping what she’s trying to articulate. He reaches for her but she dodges him with an angry shrug.

“I’m not supposed to be here! This was a one-way ticket… I’d come to terms with that! But now… now, it’s all on its ass and _I’m still here_. What do I do with that? Where do I go?”

He can see that she’s starting to shake. The collapse that he was hoping to avoid is upon her and the chivalrous bastard in him won’t leave her here like this, even though he’d do almost anything to stop the stabbing ache he gets just being in the same room with her. He flips through as many responses as a lawyer, profiler, and bloody-minded killer can come up with, and then feels his pulse settle as he lands on the right one.

“Your life is yours again - you do whatever you want with it.”

She looks at him to see if he’s dismissing her or not.

“What do _you_ want to do with it?” He asks gently.

She hesitates and rubs her arms as if she’s freezing, as if she’s been out in the cold forever. “I want to come home.” She breathes. “Not to the Unit - I don’t think that’ll work anymore. But to D.C., to my family… to you.”

“Then do that.” His shoulders sag and the sort of tension that has kept him upright through nearly a decade of stress drains out of him to the point where he’s in danger of joining his bags on the floor.

“What if there’s no room for me anymore?”

“The team will need time, but I’d be surprised if any of them were unable to forgive you. Our singularities bind us together tightly - we’re a tribe. Like you said: we’re family. As for me,” He sighs deeply. “The space you left when you disappeared has never been filled. There’s just emptiness that I’ve been trying to ignore, and unsuccessfully. To be honest, you’d be saving my damned life if you came back. I think you know that.”

“I’m not sure that I deserve that chance.” She says quietly.

He takes another step and finds himself within arms length of her. Being that close means that he has no choice but to reach for her, even though he hasn’t given himself permission to break the last of his reserves. His index finger skims the line of her cheek as her eyelids flutter and she leans into him ever so slightly.

“If I’m certain of only one thing in this situation,” He murmurs and waits for her to open her eyes again. “It’s that we deserve each other.”

“Intolerable me?” Her question barely makes any sound.

“Despicable you.” He guides her to him with two fingers under her chin and then gives up his last anxious breath when their lips meet. It’s the best he can do, and when her hands fist in his shirt and pull him closer, he realizes that it’s so much more than he ever thought he’d achieve. 

When their lips part, _love you_ escapes him on what remains of his breath, as if their kiss interrupted him. She sucks in a hasty breath and stares at him, eyes huge, waiting…

“I’m too old for bullshit.” He sighs, still holding her face gently. “This may be the last time I feel this way. _Tell_ me that I’m not alone, Emily.”

Her stare quivers slightly as she fights to maintain control. But despite her efforts, a tear slides down her cheek and dampens one of his fingers as it holds her close. “You’re not alone, Aaron.” She whispers.

He kisses her again, this time fiercely until it hurts. Even if this is the last time he’ll fall in love, he has to admit that he’s never been in love like this before. She has become indispensable to him - a partner that he can’t do without - and if she had let him walk out of that room, he doesn’t think that he would actually make it home again. There is a flash of guilt that lights up his gut as he thinks this knowing that he’d be orphaning Jack, but she’s _that_ essential. He’ll never tell anyone this, but he no longer wants to lie to himself about it either.

“Come home when you can.” He rests his forehead against hers and listens to her breathe. “I know that you probably have… things to wrap up in this fiasco…”

He feels her tense up and waits for her to argue, but then she just lets it go and nods against him instead.

“I’ll be waiting.” He brushes her lips quickly and then pulls away and collects his bags because if he stretches this out much longer he won’t have the nerve to leave her behind and catch his transport. “Just… come home.”

“Jesus…” She says it like a curse and he looks to find her wiping away her tears furiously and half smiling in the process.

“Things were easier when we hated one another.” He murmurs from the doorway.

“You’re still an ass. Assassinating people and dropping all of this romantic crap on me before turning around and fleeing thousands of miles away to another continent…”

“Well, there’s only one way to make me pay for it…”

He smiles and hopes that it doesn’t look sad to her; he isn’t _entirely_ sad - she’s made a sort of promise, after all. She scrubs her face one more time and gives him a grin. _Game face, Hotchner…_ Then she juts her chin out to him.

“See ya.” She says.

“See ya.” He replies as he hoists his bags and heads out into the corridor. She’s given him hope in the way that only she can. If he wasn’t ever going to see her again, she’d have told him that she loved him too.


	33. Chapter 33

Hotch stands in line with a bunch of limo drivers and realizes that they are all wearing basically the same suit. His is finer quality, but still, he looks like he should be wearing a silly hat like the rest of them. He smirks and then gets an idea. He looks over at the driver closest to him.

“May I borrow a pen?”

He pulls some paper from his suit jacket pocket and quickly scrawls something with the pen that is offered. He hands it back to his look-alike when he’s done with a wink.

“Forgot to make a sign before I got here.”

The driver looks at the writing and the crudely drawn FBI logo and gives him a pitying glance. Clearly Hotch isn’t up to snuff in the professional limousine driver world. He smiles and holds his sign in front of his chest proudly like the others, and waits. Exhausted travelers flow past them and out to the waiting line of loved ones, family members, taxis, and commuter buses. The drivers wait patiently for their charges to reveal themselves. He sees her before she spots him, and when she recognizes him she does a little double take as she considers the company that he’s keeping. She walks up to him and stops, dropping her bags just at his feet.

“That’s me.” She flicks her finger against his ad hoc sign and smiles as the drivers next to him watch the interaction. “The Bureau sent _you_ to pick me up?”

“Yes, miss. Only the best for their new Unit Chief.” He tries to tamp down a smile. “I’m an excellent driver.”

“We’ll see about that.”

She laughs once and then slides her arms around his neck and pulls him in for a completely unambiguous liplock. He moans shamelessly as his arms tighten around her and slowly lifts her higher. He’s been waiting for this for three months and he’s a little lightheaded that’s it’s _finally_ happening. When they come up for air, Hotch looks over at the drivers who are staring at them; a few of them seem worried that this might be some new work protocol for welcoming clients.

“Where to, Ms. Prentiss?” He sets her down and picks up her bags instead. She loosely loops an arm through his as they slowly head towards the temporary airport parking. 

“I’ve booked myself in at The Mayflower until I have time to find a rental. So, there, I guess.”

“You won’t need to find a rental.” He murmurs.

“How do you figure that?”

“Did I mention that Jack and I moved out of the condo?” He breezes as he leads her towards a Bureau fleet vehicle that should have FBI stenciled on the door panel it’s so obvious. “We’re in a house now. It has three bedrooms.”

He fishes out some keys, unlocks the back and loads her bags inside. When he turns back to her, she is wearing a look akin to terror and he suddenly worries that he’s misjudged how this would all play out. And he thought that he was being so smooth…

“It’s better for Jack.” He stammers. “He’s getting bigger by the day and… I wanted him to have a backyard. And, well, I thought that it might be better for us also.”

“You thought that I’d just… move right in, huh?” She whispers and he doesn’t know if that is more or less frightening than if she were yelling at him. “Your control issues really are astounding.”

“Listen, Emily, it’s not like that.” He steps forward and grabs her arm because he can’t stand the thought of her backing away from this again. He’s waited patiently for months and the only thing that’s made it bearable is this need that only she can fill. He’d do anything for it; she is in complete control here, not him. “There’s a room for each of us - it doesn’t have to be about… you and me. If you want a place of your own, that’s fine, but there’s no need to waste money on a hotel when I have the extra space.”

“That’s _not_ what you were hoping for, Aaron. I know you.”

He ducks his eyes away from hers. “No, it’s not, but I can readjust my expectations. I know that it must seem presumptuous but I promise that I have no desire to control you. I want you to be here willingly.”

She sighs and pulls away from him and he watches her walk along the side of the SUV and then lean against the door. She knocks her head gently against the door panel once and closes her eyes as she just leans and breathes. He’s not sure what this is and that worries him a great deal. They haven’t spoken much since Prague and now he’s wondering if something _happened_ after he left. She opens her eyes and looks over at him; her stare seems to ask him to come closer, so he does. He stands within arms reach and she gives him a tired smile.

“You’re completely insufferable and I’m crazy about you.”

“Okay.” He draws the word out. “So tell me the rest.”

“I’ve been out in the cold a long time, Aaron, and I’m not just talking about the last nine months. I put who I am in a box and just… lived out my cover identities letting the bare minimum of me through whenever possible. I’ve been living that way for years. I suppose that I expected to die before I had to incorporate any of this duality. I’m a fairly strategic planner, just not with my personal life, I guess.”

She laughs a little and then reaches for his hand, hooking a finger around his.

“Now that I’ve made it through everything, I need to figure out how _I_ work. Me, not Lauren, or Agent Prentiss, or any of my other covers…” She takes a huge breath and squeezes his finger. “I’m not sure that I’m built for domesticity, Aaron. And I’m not sure that I’d be a good role model for Jack even though I want this so badly.”

“Then let’s figure that out together.” He moves closer as she gears up to fight him. He pushes her back against the SUV with his body and spends a moment loving the feeling of it, her hair swirling recklessly in the wind of the lonely parking lot… “I’m not interested in another Haley, or Beth, or even a Miriam. Deep down I know that those relationships were failures because I’m not _that man._ I am my father’s son: angry and intolerant. And I am also Jack’s Dad: tender and awestruck. And I’m a Unit Chief in the BAU: grudging leader to a band of beautiful misfits. And, finally, I’m _yours_ because you’re the only person who knows all of that and thinks that’s worth being crazy over.”

He waits and watches as his words settle into her. She raises a hand and holds his jaw lightly.

“I’ve always had your back, Emily. That’s never going to change.”

Her eyes get round and full, and her mouth pulls down at the corners. “I’m terrified of screwing this up.”

He smiles in a way that he rarely does anymore, genuine and undisguised. “Me too.”

She leans up and kisses him, her fingers suddenly biting into his jaw to draw him in. He presses her against the SUV and cages her there with his arms on either side, digging into her with his lips, his chest, his hips. He ought to be gentle with her - it feels as if it should be a gentle moment - but she makes his affection brutal; he wants everything about her so much, and she’s never been terribly delicate to begin with. She shifts against him, struggling to get closer, and he loses a lot of his considerable control when she does. He moans into her and she laughs against him, one hand scrabbling under his suit jacket, skirting his gun holster without any hesitation, and pressing him into her with a warm palm along his back. His hips jut forward without his consent and he has to pull away from her with a gasp before his impulses convince him that it’s perfectly acceptable for him to take her in the Dulles parking lot.

“You’re a terrible influence.” He chokes as he pushes away from the vehicle and tells his body to sloooooow down.

“I know.” She gasps and leans against the car door. Maybe she’s telling herself the same thing. “So, maybe you ought to take me home now.”

“Home?” His pulse is pounding in his ears and his body is yelling at him and he just wants everything to shut up for a moment so that he can really hear what she’s saying to him.

She nods once, slowly and purposefully.

“Are you sure?”

“If you’re willing to risk this blowing up spectacularly in our faces, then I am as well.”

He takes a moment to try and settle his heartbeat that is pounding against his skin like something out of one of Jack’s Saturday morning cartoons. Maybe his expression is a little goofy as well. 

“That’s the best hedged bet I’ve ever heard.” He grins.

“Asshole.” She tsks and punches him lightly in the chest as he moves to open the passenger door for her. “Get me outta here before I change my mind and hop on the first plane to Mumbai or something.”

“Flight risk. That’s so sexy.” He snarks and closes her in as he hustles around to the driver’s side before she makes good on her Mumbai threat.


	34. Epilogue

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter takes place several years _after_ the previous one. Just in case that isn't clear.

Hotch sits amongst the other Unit Chiefs in the boardroom and tries not to daydream about pulling his sidearm and livening up the ComStats meeting a little. Middle management meet-and-greets are a waste of his precious time. He smirks as he thinks that Reid could tell them _exactly_ how much time… His phone buzzes in his pocket.

_\-- What’s doin’ over there? --_

He looks down the long table and sees her staring back at him, her Blackberry under her fingertips and a smile curling one side of her mouth. He lets out a long breath at the sight of her - the lone woman among the burly Chiefs from the male dominated departments: Bank Robbery, Domestic Threat, Organized Crime… His fingers flick over his phone quickly.

_* Was harboring some homicidal thoughts. You? *_

He waits for his message to be delivered, and then watches as her smile spreads out evenly along her mouth as she reads it.

_\-- Stuck in an endless mtg, eyefucking some hot guy from the sixth floor. --_

_* O RLY? *_

_\-- Ya. Probably get fired for standing up & demanding that he take his shirt off, huh? --_

_* Sexual harassment lawsuit at the very least. Too many witnesses. I could shoot some for you… homicidal thoughts again *_

_\-- You’d do that for me? --_

_* Oh ya. I got your back. *_

He watches as she tries to suppress a laugh. Her whole body seems alive, brighter than anything else in the room, but he knows that that is just his perception of her. Blair from White Collar Crime shoots her a look across the table as she marshals her expression, and she gives him a look back that makes the obsequious little snot slide down into his chair again. _Don’t mess with Counter Terrorism, Blair, her balls are bigger than yours_ , he thinks and waits for her eyes to return to him. When they do, he holds them and slowly reaches up to loosen his tie and undoes the collar of his dress shirt. Even at a distance, he sees that he has her attention.

_* How’s that? *_

He arches an eyebrow and waits.

_\-- You are such a fucking tease, Hotchner. --_

_* I do what I can to keep you enthralled. I hear that there’s some competition from the sixth floor at this meeting… *_

The meeting ends and Hotch can’t say what the result was if his life depended on it. The good news is that it probably doesn’t matter and that he can look forward to a similar waste of time in the near future. He watches the other Unit Chiefs break off into groups and slowly exit the conference room. She makes a point of lingering and he does as well, chatting with the head of Cyber Crimes until everyone else has gone.

“Chief Prentiss.” He greets as he walks up to her.

“Chief Hotchner.”

“How are things in Counter Terrorism today?”

“Oh, you know, paranoid and slightly bewildered. The usual.” She keeps an eye on the conference room door and when the last Chief exits, she leans into his chest and runs a finger along the inside of his collar. “How is the BAU?”

“Overanalyzing and overcaffenated.” His arms wrap around her waist.

“So, a day ending in ‘y’ basically…”

“Basically.” He brushes his lips over hers and waits. She gasps a little, smiling, and he slides into place against her. She takes it from there, pulling on his lips and breathing his air until he’s lightheaded with joy. If someone walked in on them now, she wouldn’t care: her sense of propriety only goes so far and she never lets it trump him - she’s always had a freedom that he envies. His heart stutters in his chest at the thought and then speeds up leaving him more breathless than he should be. 

“You make me want to leave them to their own devices for the day and whisk you off to a broom closet somewhere to do bad, bad things.” He kisses along her cheekbone and then buries himself in her soft, dark hair.

“You leaving the office before seven would be a sure sign of the apocalypse.” She breathes in sharply as his teeth find her earlobe. “And I’m too old for broom closets.”

“Me too. But fantasy realization is part of a healthy psyche.” He is working his way down her neck now and he knows that if he does it right, he’ll have her wrapped around his finger.

“Don’t try and psycho babble me, Mr. Hotchner. You aren’t the only one with a degree here, you know.”

“Oh, I know, Mrs. Hotchner, I know…”

She pulls away from him, flushed and suddenly awkward. “You have to stop saying that. Why do you keep asking?”

“Because one day you’re going to say ‘Yes’ to me.”

“Aaron,” She captures his face with both hands and stares straight into him. “I already said yes, years and years ago. The only difference was that you didn’t realize what you were asking.”

“But now I do, and I’m asking again.”

“You don’t need to.” She holds his face as if meaning can be transmitted to him through her fingertips. “I’m already yours. A piece of paper won’t change anything. You started out loathing me and…”

“And now you are as indistinguishable from the rest of me as thought, feeling, impulse, instinct…” He finishes. “I want to know that when I move, you’ll move with me. And I want you to understand that _that’s_ how I feel. We’re partners. Wherever you go, I’ll be beside you.”

She looks at him for a long moment, brown eyes expanding and becoming his entire world. “I already know that, you idiot.”

She kisses him again. Hard. And he squeezes his arms around her until he’s in danger of hurting her. But he won’t - he knows - she’s much stronger than that. Eventually they pull away from each other, breathless and with colour rising in their faces, both trying to come back to themselves so that they can carry on with what the day has in store for them. She leans up into his forehead.

“Try and make it home before seven tonight.”

“Okay, but only because you’ve ruled out the broom closet idea.”

She laughs. “I’m afraid that you’re gonna have to stow it a little longer - it’s Jack’s school play tonight, remember?”

“Damn. I _had_ forgotten…”

“He’s worked so hard, Aaron, and there’s a girl in it he likes, so…”

“A girl? What girl?”

“A _girl_ , Aaron. I haven’t had her vetted by the NSA or anything - we’re just going to have to meet her and find out for ourselves. He’s a handsome, thoughtful, interesting teenager… it was bound to happen sooner or later…”

“How do you know this?” He huffs as his professional scowl slides into place unconsciously.

“You mean the girl part or that your son was sure to start dating eventually?”

Hotch rolls his eyes at her.

“He _told_ me, that’s how.” She smirks. “You can be a little daunting to approach at times, you know.”

“That never stopped you.”

“That’s because I’m fearless. And I knew that I could control you with sex.”

“Really.” Hotch arches a disbelieving eyebrow.

“Really.” She smiles back at him brightly. “Now, get back down to the sixth floor and deal with everything you have to in order to get your ass home before seven, okay?” She begins smoothing the lines of his suit jacket along his shoulders and down his chest. He loves watching her hands while she does it. “Then we’ll go to the play…”

“And check out this girl who’s after my son…”

She tsks him. “We’ll meet the girl, tell Jack how proud we are of him, and then, if you’re very lucky…”

“Yes?” He sweeps her hair away from her neck making her shiver a little against him. He doesn’t try to hide his smile from her.

“I might exert a little ‘control’ over you.”

“I await your subjugation with bated breath, Chief Prentiss.”

“You bet yer ass you do.” The bravado is for show; he feels her trembling a little in his arms. There is something about a woman who can go toe-to-toe with any man at the Bureau, and then go to pieces with him when he says the right thing or strokes her arm a certain way… she is custom fit for him and he doesn’t even believe in that sort of thing. He’s at a loss for how this came to be.

“C’mere.” She grabs his shirt and re-buttons his collar. “We can’t have you going downstairs looking like this. They’ll think that you’ve suffered a psychotic break or something…”

He remembers when he foolishly thought that he was the sort of person who worked best alone. He didn’t know then that people are built to blend together, but true partnerships are rare, rarer than anyone supposes.

“You’ve got my back.” He murmurs as she straightens his tie.

“Always.” She says as if he’s just uttered something that everyone already knows.

**Author's Note:**

> A/N: I’ve made some changes to some elements of Hotch’s history. I’m not sure if his education was ever mentioned on the show - I can’t find any references to it - so I’ve chosen Stanford as his alma mater. Totally random. Also, although it was revealed that he was sent to Pakistan in “It Takes A Village” (S7), I wanted him in slightly more danger for the purposes of this story so I changed it to Afghanistan. His mysterious sniper skills, as revealed in S9, I have attributed to time spent in some branch of the armed forces (though god knows where he found the time between becoming a lawyer, being a prosecutor, being an FBI field agent, and then becoming a unit chief in the BAU). Finally, I seem to make Hotch a borderline alcoholic in almost every story I write for him. Alcoholism is never mentioned in his back history on the show, so clearly this is a case of my personal head canon peeking through ;)
> 
> Since Prentiss’s entire back history was thrown for a loop because of the Ian Doyle storyline, I haven’t really bothered to make her details here canon compliant. Screw that. If the show writers can dispense with logic and consistency, so can I.
> 
> Mala Amerika and Velka Amerika are old limestone quarries to the southwest of Prague. They are now tourist attractions and popular film shooting locations.
> 
> Thanks to SV for helping me understand that cursing in Czech isn’t as easy as it is in English.


End file.
